Sky inks €876m a year Bundesliga broadcast deal

Pay-TV operator Sky has inked a deal that will see it broadcast Germany's Bundesliga football through to 2021 at an average rights cost of €876m a year, from €486m under the existing contract.

The win followed a successful outcome to the German Professional Football Association's (DFL) tender process.

Under the new agreement, Sky was paying 32% more in the 2017/18 season -- the first year of the new contract -- than in the final year of the existing agreement, which concluded at the end of the 2016/17 season.

But, it said, customers would now have access to 572 live matches a season from 2017/18 to 2020/21, across all platforms.

Sky said the new deal meant it would continue to broadcast 93% of all live matches, including full live coverage of Bundesliga matches on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

It would also, for the first time, become the exclusive live broadcaster for all matches of the Bundesliga 2 regular season, with an additional live match on Monday evenings.

The deal with DFL was the latest phase in the delivery of Sky's growth strategy in Germany.

"By leveraging capabilities across the Group and deploying successful initiatives from other territories, the company is exploiting the significant headroom for growth," it said.

"This strategy is working," the broadcaster said in a statement

Sky Deutschland has added 1.2m customers over the last three years, grown its revenues by almost 40% and moved the business into profit for the first time in a third quarter.