The German telecommunications company, Deutsche Telekom has extended its sponsorship contract with the German Football Federation (DFB). The new deal will run until 2024 and will allow it to combine intellectual property rights with ongoing media rights deals for major international tournament football.
The firm will continue to sponsor the DFB and the men’s national team for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar and the UEFA Euro 2024 in Germany. The company will also provide extensive content from the national team’s training camp and base camp to augment its match coverage. As part of the new accord, Deutsche Telekom has been granted ‘behind-the-scenes’ media access and exclusive interviews as well.
Deutsche Telekom is the only German distributor that will exclusively telecast all matches from both competitions through its MagentaTV subscription platform.
In 2019, the telecoms company purchased the Euro 2024 rights. Last year, the company obtained exclusive rights from ARD and ZDF to all matches from the postponed 2020 European Championship and the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The public broadcasters kept the free-to-air rights to 41 Euro 2020 matches and 48 World Cup 2022 matches (including Germany’s matches, semi-finals, and final).
Michael Hagspihl, Senior Vice-President of Global Strategic Projects and Marketing partnerships at Deutsche Telekom, said, “Telekom and football bring people together on a national and international level. Our long-term and trusting partnership with the DFB opens up opportunities for us to show Telekom’s innovative strength with our network quality, digital technologies and our products and services. In addition to the partnership with the men’s national team, we are also media partners of the 3. Liga and the Flyeralarm Women’s Bundesliga. Both leagues are an integral part of our long-term sports video strategy.”
Dr Holger Blask, Managing Director of Marketing and Sales and spokesman for DFB GmbH & Co.KG, stated that Deutsche Telekom would assist the DFB with “future innovation issues, thereby assisting us to constantly improve in the stadium and on the DFB campus.”
The DFB Campus is the new office of DFB GmbH & Co KG which is a new private corporation established to manage the governmental body’s commercial, IT facilities, and event areas. On the sporting front, the company includes national teams, age group teams, an academy, and the 3. Liga, the women’s league, and the DFB-Pokal.
Recently, a German bank with retail, business, and corporate customers, Targobank also renewed its sponsorship agreement with DFB. The new contract has been extended for four years, from 2022-23 to 2025-26.