Bundesliga and IMG extend global video archive partnership

Bundesliga International and IMG have extended their video archive partnership, which will see IMG continue to license the archive video content from German football’s top two leagues until the conclusion of the 2025/26 season.

This new deal will build on Bundesliga and IMG’s existing partnership, where IMG retains the rights to sublicense Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 archive content to territories across the world excluding Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg. IMG will support global media companies, brands and partners to sub-license content from the DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga’s comprehensive historical database, which spans 60 years, going back to its inaugural 1963-64 season.

The “DFL Media Hub” is the world’s largest digital football archive of its kind, providing national and international media partners with fast and easy access to over 200,000 hours of historical film and video recordings from the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2, as well as working with the DFB (German Football Association) to include Liga 3, the Women’s Bundesliga, the DFB-Pokal and men’s and women’s international matches.

Available via the DFL’s fully-owned subsidiary Sportcast, the DFL Media Hub is not just the largest, but also the smartest digital video database in the world. More than 12,000 hours of video material are added to the DFL Media Hub each season, utilising machine learning and artificial intelligence to streamline the process of match action recognition, logging and storage, as well as supporting the user to find the right material amongst several petabytes of footage. Furthermore, the Hub employs innovative technological features such as “Face and Emotion Recognition” to recognise specific players and the related emotions automatically.

Under the multi-year agreement, certain footage dating back to the 1963/64 season will also be made available on IMG’s digital archive platform IMG Replay, alongside selected archive highlights and programming.

Peer Naubert, Chief Marketing Officer of Bundesliga International, said: “This season, we celebrate 60 years of the Bundesliga: with consistently more goals than any other league over the last 30 years, moments and matches that stand the test of time, and a passion that has been passed on from generation to generation. Through our long-lasting partnership with IMG, we are able to ensure that these unforgettable snippets of German football history and culture are not only preserved, but shared and enjoyed around the world.”

Tom Barnes, Vice President of IMG Replay, said: “Bundesliga has given us some of the most memorable action in world football featuring legends of the game like Franck Ribery, Kevin Keegan, Jay-Jay Okocha and Robert Lewandowski. As one of the most popular leagues in the world, we are delighted to renew our long-term archive partnership and give current and future generations a chance to relive these iconic moments again and again.”

IMG Replay is one of the largest multi-sport archives in the world, with more than 400,000 hours of footage resulting from representation deals with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) the Premier League, World Rugby, the Wimbledon Championships, the R&A (The Open), DP World Tour, UFC, Bundesliga and many more.