The German Ice Hockey League (DEL) is on summer break: the ice surfaces in most arenas have thawed, players and coaches are on vacation.

It's still hard work.

The DEL management, which bundles the interests of the 15 first-class clubs, has concluded an agreement that is intended to promote the growth of the sport in this country.

DEL and Deutsche Telekom extended their television partnership at an early stage and over the long term.

The agreement, which was valid until the end of the 2023/24 season anyway, was fixed until mid-2028.

An agreement with symbolic power, as DEL Managing Director Gernot Tripcke emphasized in an interview with the FAZ, which makes "significant further development" possible.

Marc Heinrich

sports editor.

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"We are entering new dimensions in the value chain," he said.

Most recently, the proceeds from the marketing of moving images were shared among the clubs in solidarity, each receiving around 300,000 euros for a season.

The amount will double in the future, which for the industry, which had to cope with a loss of sales of 40 million euros as a result of the pandemic, "is a clear sign that shows how positively we have developed overall," said Tripcke.

The agreement with Deutsche Telekom, which will continue to broadcast the more than 400 games of the season live on its Magenta Sport platform, is evidence of "mutual appreciation".

There were many competitors who would have courted the favor of the DEL, including "international players", according to Tripcke, who expects that with the American Discovery Group, which has held all shares in the Eurosport channel since 2015, "in the foreseeable future “ an additional provider will act even more ambitiously on the German television sports market.

"Competition stimulates business," said Tripcke and reported that there were also negotiations with S Nation Media.

The joint media company of Christian Seifert, the former head of the German Football League, and the media group Axel Springer, which will go on the air in autumn 2023, was interested in expanding its portfolio to include the DEL, having previously acquired rights for table tennis, volleyball and basketball – however, his offer was outbid by Telekom.

Never-before-seen live impressions planned

According to Magenta Sport, it is currently "the largest platform for German team sports", as a spokesman for the FAZ said, almost 2000 ice hockey, basketball and football games are broadcast every year.

Telekom has been the media partner of DEL since 2016, which ranks second behind König Fußball in terms of viewership in Germany.

In the last round, which ended at Easter with Eisbären Berlin defending their title in the play-off final against Red Bull Munich, more than 20 million viewers watched the games live on TV, computer or smartphone.

This means that the range has “more than doubled” since the start of the cooperation, said Tripcke.

From the continuation of the cooperation also speaks for him a "grown understanding" of the interests of all participants.

So the Telekom showed concessions as far as the revaluation rights are concerned.

Up to 50 games per year can be sublicensed to free TV partners.

Tripcke also announced technical innovations by Telekom in all halls, which should give viewers live impressions that have never been seen before in Germany.

Among other things, cameras in HD quality will be installed above the goals and in the crossbar of the goals, which will document the fight for the puck at close range.

Most recently, the DEL clubs' posts generated almost 50 million hits on the various social media channels every month.

According to Tripcke, further increasing this reach across all platforms is a “clear goal” of the DEL future strategy, which is to be implemented in cooperation with Telekom.

The clubs will soon be able to integrate up to five real-time sequences into their online appearances during the games in order to equip their own digital offerings.