For football fans, the television offer is becoming more and more confusing. The saying “All games, all goals” no longer applies to any broadcaster, not even to a subscription channel like Sky, let alone to the free-to-air programs. In order to achieve the highest price, the league association, the German Football League (DFL), put the broadcasting rights in so many different packages that the interested broadcasters could only buy a part of them based on the sums required. The DFL achieved a price of 4.4 billion euros through the sale of the broadcasting rights for the seasons 2021/22 to 2024/25, which was completed in June of last year.

For viewers who want to see as much as possible of the first, second Bundesliga and third division or even the Champions League, the new distribution of rights means that they have to buy several subscriptions at the same time, with Sky, DAZN and Magenta.

The DFB Cup begins this weekend.

The Bundesliga starts next week on Friday with the top match between Borussia Mönchengladbach and FC Bayern Munich.

Shortly afterwards, the Champions League sets in.

But what's going on where?

An overview.

DFB Cup on free TV

DFB-Pokal

: The range of cup games on television at no additional cost is comparatively large.

13 games are shown on free-to-air television this season, nine are shown on ARD and four on Sport1.

There are also the great summaries in the first.

All games are only available from the pay TV provider Sky.

From 2022/23 on, there will be 15 cup games on free TV, then on ARD and ZDF.

1st National League

: The Bundesliga is expensive for the fans. Only three premier league games run live on free TV on Sat.1 - and no longer on ZDF, as was the case until last season. In addition to the opening game on Friday, there is one game each on the 17th and 18th matchdays. The Sat.1 package also includes the Supercup and the relegation. If you want to be free to choose, you need two subscriptions. The pay TV broadcaster Sky shows all matches on Saturday for its customers, and the internet provider DAZN, which is also paid for, broadcasts the live games on Friday and Sunday. There will also be summaries in the coming season, primarily in the ARD “Sportschau” on Saturday. ZDF also continues to show highlights in the “Sportstudio” on Saturday evening. Sport1 is also allowed to show free highlights on Sunday mornings.

2nd Bundesliga

: The free TV offer in the 2nd division is significantly larger than in the 1st division.

Sat.1 is allowed to broadcast the opening game for four years, this year FC Schalke 04 were against Hamburger SV.

Sport1 has 33 top games on offer, usually on Saturday evenings.

ARD offers most of the summaries on free TV.

An offshoot of the “Sportschau” shows the highlights of the 2nd Bundesliga at One on Fridays from 10.30 p.m.

The offer of the public broadcaster also includes the new summaries on Sunday and the previously permitted on Saturday in the “Sportschau”.

Third division at Telekom

3rd league

: The DFB extended the contracts for the broadcast of the 3rd league with Telekom in February by one season until 2022/23.

Magenta Sport customers can watch 380 live games per season.

The 3rd division will continue to be shown on free TV by ARD and its 3rd programs.

86 live games as well as summaries of all games are allowed.

Women's Bundesliga

: The streaming service MagentaSport shows all 132 games of the women's Bundesliga live.

The league starts on August 27th at 7.15 p.m. with the match between TSG Hoffenheim and SC Freiburg.

Champions League

: The fans also have to pay for the Champions League, which starts with the play-offs in mid-August. In free TV, only the finals from 2022 to 2024 run on ZDF. Supporters of the most important European Cup cannot ignore DAZN, the pay streaming service has live rights for 121 games. In addition, the US Internet giant Amazon secured rights and shows the top game on Tuesday evening on its paid streaming service Prime Video. According to information from the German Press Agency, the ZDF shows summaries of the respective Wednesday games. A confirmation is still pending.

Europa League

: RTL is the television home of the Europa League and the new Conference League with rights to 282 games. The games are shown on RTL, the niche channel Nitro and the in-house streaming service TV Now.