German Public Broadcaster ARD Spends More Than $860M On Football Rights

German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF each pay about €70M ($86.1M) for "Olympic broadcast rights," according to HORIZONT.net. ARD has a budget of €1B ($1.2B) for sporting event rights. More than €700M ($861.4M) of this budget is only spent on football rights. ARD pays about €368M ($452.9M) to broadcast the World Cup, Euro and the games of the German national team. It has to pay another €339M ($417.2M) for the German Bundesliga. The "rights for the Bundesliga will increase" by 2% in the next fee period. In addition, the cost for the upcoming Euro will also increase. For the first time ever 24 nations will participate at Euro 2016, this increases the number of games from 31 to 51. In comparison to these high-priced football rights, the rights for the Olympic Games "seem quite moderate." For the '10 Vancouver Winter Games and the current London Games ARD calculates with rights costs of €71M ($87.4M). The second German public broadcaster ZDF contributes about the same amount of money (HORIZONT.net, 7/30).