German pay TV operator Premiere will effectively take over all rights to the country's top football league from cable group Unity after a sub-licensing and wholesale deal was given the nod by Germany's cartel office (the Bundeskartellamt). Pair have been in drawn-out negotiations after the regulator launched an investigation into an earlier sharing agreement thrashed out in February. Terms of the new agreement give Premiere full control of the German Bundesliga rights, although Unity will continue to underwrite the costs. Agreement also includes rights to the Spanish first division and UK Premier leagues which Unity acquired earlier this year. Premiere will take an exclusive sub-license to the rights through to the 2008/2009 season and will market all football content and programming under the Premiere brand.

Premiere will pay a license fee to Unity and Unity will still get the 16.7 per cent non-voting stake in Premiere that was included in the earlier deal, to be held through Swiss financial group Pictet & Cie. Cartel office has said Unity must sell the shares by June 2009 when the rights agreement between the two expires. Customers already subscribing directly to Unity's Arena service either through its new satellite platform or through Unity and Kabel BW's cable networks will continue to receive Bundesliga programming (now with Premiere brand), with Unity paying a per-subscriber fee to Premiere. Bundesliga is also available to Deutsche Telekom IPTV subscribers through a separate rights agreement.

Premiere will make the football available through three main packages. Bundesliga games will be available in a stand-alone package for €19.99 a month or for €9.99 to customers taking the complete Premiere digital offer. An additional tier containing the Bundesliga games and all UEFA and other European soccer leagues will cost €29.99 a month. Premiere has also agreed a six-year carriage agreement to distribute its channels on Unity's cable networks, including capacity for its Premiere HD channel.Premiere will continue to carry out subscriber fulfilment and billing for its customers via cable, but crucially, the Premiere content will be offered using Unity's own smart-cards from 2008, rather than over a Premiere set-top box and card as has historically been the case. This should have benefits for the cable group in upselling its own managed digital tiers.