An this Thursday there are still 77 days until the start of the Women’s World Cup. If you follow a representative survey by Appinio, then more than half of those surveyed (55 percent) looked at past women’s world championships. On the other hand, almost two thirds (63 percent) of Germans will probably tune in to the July 20th in Australia and New Zealand.
Accordingly, the majority of those surveyed (87 percent) are also in favor of the games being broadcast on TV (25 percent), online (6 percent) or ideally both ways (57 percent) – despite employer-unfriendly kick-off times, which in some cases well after midnight or, in the case of the German national team, in the morning (10:30 a.m. against Morocco, 11:30 a.m. / Colombia and 12:00 p.m. / South Korea). The only question is where – and whether they can do it at all.
Because it is becoming increasingly clear that the German supporters are facing a TV blackout. Because Fifa protests against the offers for the broadcasting rights presented by ARD and ZDF. Tenor according to the World Football Association: much too low.
“There we are again in the economic area,” said Baerbock
That even called Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) onto the scene. In the debate about the award of the TV rights, she relied on the public TV broadcasters. “One is Fifa, to which we can urgently appeal, the other is the public broadcaster,” said Baerbock at the World Cup kick-off for the tournament at the Foreign Office in Berlin.
The 2022 European Championship final between England and Germany (2-1) was the most-watched TV sporting event of the year. “Here we are again in the economic area,” said Baerbock. She hopes “that we can watch it on our channels so that we can continue to promote the passion of those who are interested,” said the 42-year-old. In the summer of 2022, 17.952 million viewers watched the live broadcast from London’s Wembley Stadium on German TV.
Annalena Baerbock at the kick-off event for the Women’s World Cup at the Federal Foreign Office
Source: dpa/Jörg Carstensen
On Thursday, after the Foreign Minister, a second top German politician joined the debate. The Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, who is responsible for sports, called for “a quick agreement” via BILD and criticized the world association: “Fifa’s threatening gestures don’t help anyone.” A football World Cup is “a football festival for everyone,” said the SPD politician to the newspaper “ Millions of Germans want to cheer for our team – just like me!”
Fifa President Gianni Infantino warned at the beginning of the week that the games could not be shown on TV in Germany either. In the opinion of DFB President Bernd Neuendorf, this scenario must be prevented at all costs. “The blackout must not come. That would be a step backwards in Germany and worldwide,” said the DFB boss, who has also been a member of the Fifa Council since last month. You can only appeal to everyone involved to reason, said Neuendorf.
But the broadcasters seem to let them prevail. In view of the publicly demanded savings pressure and the internally necessary savings measures, they obviously cannot and do not want to finance the dreams of an ambitious Fifa boss. Incidentally, the private broadcasters also have a similar reasoning, but nothing is known of an offer on their part.
Charly Classen, head of sports at the broadcaster Sky, recently told the “Stern” that women’s football is growing fast and the potential is huge, but Fifa “wants to use it and calls up prices that nobody on the market currently wants to pay. That’s why we continue to gamble on both sides.” Two weeks ago, ZDF said in a statement that the broadcaster’s offers for the acquisition of sports rights “are based, among other things, on the market price for the respective sports rights. Under certain circumstances, the market value can deviate considerably from the price expectations of the rights marketers”.
“Disappointing and just unacceptable”
ARD sports coordinator Axel Balkausky recently said in an interview with the “FAZ” in mid-April that ARD and ZDF had “placed a market-oriented offer within the framework of this tender. For the moment, we can only note that Fifa apparently does not want to grant the rights in Germany or in other major European markets.”
Infantino counters that the broadcasters’ offers, “particularly from the five major European countries, are still very disappointing and simply unacceptable.” Infantino did not name the countries specifically, according to information from the German Press Agency, Germany is one of them.
At a World Trade Organization event in Geneva earlier this week, Infantino explicitly mentioned Germany, Great Britain and Italy. He couldn’t understand,” he quarreled, “why the German broadcasters are offering us 30 or 40 times less than for the men’s World Cup.”
It is “our moral and legal obligation not to undersell the Women’s World Cup,” Infantino said stay fair.”
Infantino outlined that while broadcasters are paying $100-200 million for the rights to broadcast the men’s tournament, they are only offering $1-10 million for the women’s tournament. This is “a slap in the face to all the great players at the Women’s World Cup and all women worldwide”. But that is also part of Infantino’s self-portrayal. Since his re-election in March, he has sold himself as a champion of women’s football and equal pay.
Fifa only advertised the TV rights to the women’s World Cup in January – for the first time separately and not as a package with a men’s World Cup as before. The broadcasters had to submit their bids to the world association by February 14. “I can’t imagine that our World Cup games will not be broadcast in Germany,” said national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg of BILD. If that were to happen, it would be “a huge disappointment” for her.
There is a high probability that there will be a picture of the World Cup at the end, at least on the sidelines. Foreign Minister Baerbock says she is planning her inaugural visit to Australia and New Zealand in the summer and could then attend a German semi-final in Sydney or Auckland. In all likelihood, no TV station will miss this.
