By Jonathan Easton

Sky and DAZN are reportedly set to emerge victorious in the award of domestic broadcast rights to the German Bundesliga.

According to Reuters, the pair will be the biggest rights holders for the four seasons from 2021-22 with Amazon not believed to have played a major role in bidding, despite the tech giant’s recent deal to broadcast matches through to the end of the 2019-20 season.

If accurate, the rights award will also mean that Deutsche Telekom did not follow through on its previously stated desire to pick up domestic Bundesliga rights. Similarly there is no mention of Discovery, which pulled out of its €70 million(US$82.69million)-per season deal with the league last month.

This is also the first major European football rights auction since coronavirus pandemic, and it is believed that the value will have decreased.

The current deal which covers Germany’s top two leagues runs through until the end of next season and was worth €4.64 billion. Reuters’ sources claim that the new deal will be worth around €4.3 billion, while a report from local football magazine Kicker said that it will be between €4.2-4.4 billion.