Breaking news for football fans in Germany and Austria! Pay-TV Sky Deutschland has lost the rights to show English Premier League from the season 2016/17.
Premier League satellite TV schedule
The TV rights have gone to London-based sports media company Perform Group, who, at the same time, have also been awarded non-exclusive Premier League rights in Switzerland and Luxembourg.
It means viewers in these Central European countries are likely to have to subscribe to a web-based service to watch live streams of the action. Perform Group owns Spox.com, which already offers live streams of sporting events to viewers in Germany.
Sky operates pay-TV services in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy. Earlier this year, Sky secured non-exclusive Premier League rights for the UK and Ireland for another three years, with BT Sport taking the remainder of the matches.
About Perform Group
PERFORM Group was created in September 2007 through the merger of two businesses: Premium TV Limited, a provider of web and mobile solutions to the sports sector, and the Inform Group, a digital sports rights agency.
The businesses were rebranded “PERFORM” in January 2008 under the leadership of current Chief Executive Officer Simon Denyer, and former joint CEO Oliver Slipper. In February 2011, the Group completed the acquisition of Goal.com and sports data companies RunningBall and Opta Sports were also acquired in 2011 and 2013 respectively.
Group was de-listed from the London Stock Exchange in November 2014 when Access Industries increase its stake in the company from 42.5% to 77%.