Our take...

The deal with DFL re-establishes Kirch in his core business: sports rights and licensing. He formerly owned the ProSieben family of channels and German Pay-TV platform DF1 (later Premiere), which held broadcasting rights for Formula 1 and the Bundesliga. Kirch went bust in 2002 after over-spending on film and sports contracts. The group's insolvency left the Bundesliga with a €500m short-fall. Kirch surprisingly reappeared in September 2007 when he became a shareholder of EM.Sport Media. Although the new €3bn deal is secured by a 100 per cent bank guarantee in order to protect the league from financial difficulties, it nevertheless comes as a surprise that the DFL is striking a deal with the man who previously put it into such severe trouble. The new deal will only bring an additional €60m a season over the current agreement with Unity Media. The extra cash will further have to be shared between DFL's 36 clubs.

However, despite the Kirch insolvency, his name does not seem to be looming over the league and the cooperation with Sirius may partly be, as paradoxical as it might seem, a bid for security: In 2005, the DFL guaranteed the marketing rights not to high-bidding Premiere but to the inexperienced provider Arena in order to create more competition in the market. However, as Arena failed to gain a sufficient amount of subscribers quickly, its license was effectively passed on to Premiere. By using a middle-man , the DFL must believe it will get the widest distribution for the rights--including on-line sales--with the highest revenue. But with no physical distribution of its own, Sirius could face a nervous round of negotiations if Premiere and others make good on their threat not to buy pre-packaged content.

DFL remains confident and thinks the new deal will renew growth in income from the rights allowing it to catch up with other top-flight leagues like the UK's Premier League and Italian Serie A.