Arena is to sublicense its Bundesliga football TV broadcasting rights to pay-TV provider Premiere AG and may dissolve its own Bundesliga editorial and production staff and discontinue its football channel, the Financial Times Deutschland reported, citing sources in the industry.
The report said that this could be a major component in a draft, which Arena and Premiere have presented to the German Cartel Office, and would mean that Arena soon would no longer produce or distribute German Football matches.
Both companies and the German Football League (DFL) -- which distributes the football marketing rights -- declined to comment on the report.
If the suggestion were to be accepted, it would mean that Unitymedia -- the parent company of Arena -- has failed in its attempt to create a competing pay-TV Football channel to rival Premiere.
In 2005, Arena won the rights to live broadcasting of German Football matches from Premiere in a spectacular bidding war. Arena now pays the DFL 240 mln eur per year for the rights to distribute all first and second league games.
Arena and Premiere later came to an agreement under which Premiere swapped 16.7 pct of its stock to Arena for non-exclusive satellite marketing rights for the games.
The German Cartel Office then raised concerns about the deal and stopped the two companies from transferring the rights until it had prepared its decision.
Yesterday, the Cartel Office said it no longer had concerns about the deal following a new proposal from Premiere, however it did not say what this new proposal was.
Arena to sublicense Bundesliga rights to Premiere, cancel its channel - report - Forbes.com