German cartel office seeks Bundesliga broadcast rights reform - FAZ

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany's Federal Cartel Office wants to introduce a "no single buyer" rule when it awards broadcasting rights for the 2017/2018 Bundesliga football season, potentially dealing a blow to Sky Deutschland, Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said.

The cartel office is pushing the German Football League to modify the way it auctions the rights, demanding a new rule which would prevent a single broadcaster from getting all the live games, the paper said, citing sources close to media companies.

Such a rule could hit the business model of Sky Deutschland which currently holds the sole rights to games in the first and second Bundesliga, the paper said. Sky Deutschland, along with Britain's BSkyB and Sky Italia, is part of European pay-TV group Sky Plc, which is 39 percent owned by Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox.

(Reporting by Edward Taylor; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)