May 18 – Germany’s Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 clubs will receive more than €170 million from the 2023-24 season from the licensing of the global rights for stickers and trading cards, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
The 2023-34 season is the start of DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga’s new rights cycle. The deals with OneFootball, Sorare and Topps will be a four-fold increase on current agreements.
“The clubs in the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 are receiving an important piece of planning certainty in difficult economic times”, said Donata Hopfen, DFL CEO. “The investment from our partners underlines the enormous popularity that German professional football enjoys. I am delighted that the design of the rights packages with classic products and innovative digital opportunities has been well received.”
Breaking the deals down, fast growing streaming service OneFootball is further expanding its digital business into the NFT market with the rights for a digital trading card collection that includes exclusive rights to ‘NFT moments’ (NFT-based videos from the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2).
Sorare has renewed exclusive rights to use player images and content for NFTs in in a fantasy football game (2023–24 to 2024–25 seasons). Sorare had already secured the same rights for the 2021–22 and 2022–23 seasons.
Topps will continue to hold the license for the physical products of stickers, trading card games and trading card collections. Topps has been a Bundesliga partner since 2008.
Robert Klein, CEO of the DFL subsidiary Bundesliga International, which conducted the tender process, said: “We will continue to work very closely with our partners in the coming years and support them in satisfying demand for existing products and new ones from fans all over the world.”
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