ABundesliga football resumes on Friday. Borussia Mönchengladbach debut against FC Bayern Munich. The cult duel of the 70s makes the hearts of football romantics beat faster. The game is played on Sat1. broadcast on free television. One of the few in the Bundesliga to be available for free.

The second division is already on the move. Small consolation for the many fans who see their team in the upper room rather than the second tier: they only need a pay TV subscription to be able to see all the games.

It becomes much more confusing for fans of Bundesliga and European Cup clubs. A Sky subscription hasn’t been enough here for years. From this season there are new platforms, some of which require new subscriptions.

An overview of the broadcasting rights for the 2021/22 season:

Bundesliga

Anyone who wants to watch all Bundesliga games will also need two pay TV subscriptions in the future. Sky and DAZN broadcast the games. This was the case last season. What’s new is that Sat1 will also show a selection of Friday matches (1st, 17th and 18th matchdays on free TV. Also new is DAZN will now show more games. All Sunday matches (3:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.) and Friday (8:30 p.m.) take place on the streaming provider, for a total of 106 games, 103 of which are broadcast exclusively there.

Sky will retain the Saturday matches and the associated Saturday conference. That’s around 200 Bundesliga games, so the majority. Right after the final whistle, here are the highlights of WELT in video form!

2. Bundesliga

Good news for the many fans of the second because of the relegation of the many traditional clubs. The 306 games will all air on Sky. So you only need a subscription. And: 33 games are also available on free television alongside the pay offer. Namely at Sport 1, whose predecessor station DSF had always had a strong link with the House of Commons. The first matchday of the 2nd league also takes place on Sat1.

As in the Bundesliga, the following applies to the second: Highlights are available as a video here at WELT right after the final whistle!

3. League

The same applies here: if you want to see all the games, you need a pay TV subscription. As in previous years, the paying service provider Magenta Sport broadcasts all the matches of the 3rd division.

Unlike the first two leagues, however, there is a lot more to see on free TV. After all, 86 of the 380 games take place on ARD or the affiliate state broadcasters of the respective federal state where the teams originate from. At least two duels per match day should be available free of charge.

Relegation

The relegation matches for the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga take place on Sky and Sat1.

DFB-Pokal

In DFB-Pokal there are still a lot of games on free television. As in the pre-season, pay TV broadcaster Sky broadcasts all matches in one match and in conference. There are 63 in total, of which 50 are only on Sky. There will be 13 free-to-air games. Which games exactly are not decided until after the respective round has been drawn.

ARD shows a total of nine matches and breaks them down as follows: one match each in the first and second rounds, two from the eighth round to the semi-finals and of course the DFB Cup final. Sport1 also bought the right to broadcast a match from the first round to the quarter-finals. From the next season, from 2022, the rights will be reassigned.

Super Cup

The Supercup works on Sky and Sat1.

Champions League

Again, it gets complicated. But as a general rule, you can say: more DAZN, less Sky. No sky at all to be precise. DAZN now shares the rights of the first class with Amazon.

From this season until the 2023/24 season, DAZN has 121 of the 137 Champions League games on its schedule. Starting with the play-offs and ending with the final. All Wednesday games and all Tuesday games except one game per week can be viewed on the streaming provider. This also goes for the match day conference for the first time this year.

Champions League newcomer Amazon Prime Video is cleared to show Tuesday night’s best game. In total, Amazon secured 16 transmissions, including two playoff games.

Europa League

Do you need a pay TV subscription for the “second division” of the European Cup? Clear yes and no. For the first time, the rights to the competition are entirely and exclusively held by Mediengruppe RTL. So far, Cologne’s private broadcaster was only allowed to broadcast two matches per match day. The rest was at DAZN.

Now RTL has all the games. But not all of them are free to receive, as some will only be seen on the RTL TVnow streaming platform – and it costs. At the same time, there should still be a game on RTL or the NITRO media group.

Europa League Conference

The same as for the Europa League also applies to the Europa League Conference. Everything is at home at Mediengruppe RTL.

National team

In the calendar year, the German national team still has seven games. All the qualifying matches for the World Cup from winter 2022. And all the games also run on a single broadcaster: RTL.