Bundesliga Media Rights and Marketing Partnership in the Americas are Signed by DFL

The German Football League (DFL) has agreed to sign a long-term partnership with Relevent Sports Group to grow the presence of the Bundesliga in the Americas.

The collaboration will be effective immediately and contains the Caribbean as well as North, Central, and South America. Relevent president Boris Gartner affirmed to SportsPro that the partnership would last 17 years.

The Bundesliga Americas team that the DFL and Relevent will assemble will be comprised of specialists in sales, marketing, PR, and content. The team will be concentrated exclusively on the Bundesliga and second-tier Bundesliga 2 and will be arranged in both New York City and Guadalajara.

From the start of the 2026/27 season on, Relevent will be in charge of marketing the media rights to both leagues across the Americas. The organization will likewise support the Bundesliga’s media and sponsorship sales beginning with the ongoing 2024/25 campaign, with the DFL to have the final say on its media partners and the choice of regional sponsors.

DFL CEO Steffen Merkel said in a statement: “The American market is currently in an exciting development phase and offers great potential for the Bundesliga. It is exactly the right time for such a partnership with the Relevent Sports Group, which has built up an enormous reputation in recent years and stands for ambition, expertise, and growth. Together, we will make great strides forward in the marketing of German professional football.”

Relevent co-founder and CEO Danny Sillman let SportsPro know that the organization would put personalized marketing for every area at the heart of its procedure. To provide additional digital content in a variety of languages for various fan platforms, it intends to construct a bespoke content studio.

“We’re going to have different languages for the content,” Sillman said. “We’re going to have different narratives and communication tactics, in terms of how we would communicate with each of those regions, that are going to be different than each other because you have different fans and audiences.

“Our strategy is going to be specific to who we’re speaking to, and who we’re engaging in the process. That’s what makes this partnership different than a traditional agency. Instead of just brokering rights, we’re coming in with a holistic internationalization strategy.”

Relevent manages the media rights for a few European soccer leagues, including the US rights to the Uefa Champions League and the English Football League’s (EFL) rights for the Americas. It presently includes the DFL’s Americas rights in its portfolio before the league’s current US rights deal with ESPN expires at the end of the 2025/26 season.

When asked about what Relevent would be looking for in a new broadcast partner for the league, Sillman said that it would look at how broadcasters plan to create “great studio show content” like bespoke pre-game and post-game programming, as well as how they want to maximize the league’s promotion and distribution.

“It’s about ensuring we have a media partner that’s engaged from a broadcast and streaming standpoint, that is focused on football, and not just using the content to fill in extra programming hours on linear, or they’re just throwing it into a streaming service as extra content that lives within that streaming service,” Sillman said.

”We’re going to focus on big engines, in terms of having a media partner that has the fanbase that already comes in and is consuming content on their channels, and is focused specifically on the sport.”

Regardless of different leagues supposedly seeing a decrease in their US rights income, Gartner said the German league ought to see “a growth in value”, as long as it further invests and develops its presence in the region.

Relevent is additionally right now associated with an ongoing legal dispute with US Soccer over the chance of bringing European league games to the US. In April, it arrived at a settlement with Fifa over the matter, with the governing body to review its policy that bans league games from being held abroad.

Relevent will work with the marketing of Bundesliga club trips to the United States as part of its partnership with the DFL. Nonetheless, the option of staging Bundesliga games in the North American country remains immovably off the table. As per Gartner, that chance remaining parts are exclusively up to the league and clubs.

“It’s not part of this partnership,” he added. “The events will be similar to what we’ve done with the summer tournaments and the International Champions Cup, and then more recently, with the Premier League Summer Series and with the La Liga Summer Tour.

“It is about facilitating activities like that, where you can get the league, the clubs, and the players closer to fans here.”