Broadcast Rights

Competitions available on ZDF Sport

FIFA World Cup

2026

ZDF will broadcast 30 matches from the FIFA World Cup 2026 live in Germany on free-to-air television, including the opening match, semi-finals, the final, and all Germany fixtures, with additional streaming available via the ZDF website and app.

▶ More details: How to watch FIFA World Cup in Germany

UEFA Champions League

2024-2027

ZDF has maintained its non-exclusive UEFA Champions League broadcast rights in Germany until 2027. The free-to-air network has agreed to telecast and stream the Champions League final live in 2025, 2026, and 2027. ZDF also has permission to feature match highlights from Tuesdays and Wednesdays on its linear channels starting at 23:00 local time on Wednesday.

▶ More details: How to watch UEFA Champions League in Germany

UEFA Nations League

2022-2028

UEFA Nations League broadcast rights in Germany include all matches featuring the national team, which are shown live on ZDF Sport through a free-to-air agreement that runs until the end of the 2027-28 season. This joint deal with ARD covers 30 German national team fixtures across multiple competitions, including the UEFA Nations League, 2026 World Cup qualifiers, and Euro 2028 qualifiers.

▶ More details: How to watch UEFA Nations League in Germany

UEFA Women's Champions League

2025-2030

German free-to-air broadcaster ZDF owns the broadcast rights to the Women's Champions League in Germany. Thanks to a deal agreed by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) on their behalf, ZDF has the rights to the competition until the end of the 2029-30 season. The deal includes at least one match per week, one of the two semi-finals and the final at the end of each season.

▶ More details: How to watch UEFA Women's Champions League in Germany

About

ZDF Sport history, coverage, features

The Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen, or ZDF, is a German television channel based in the city of Mainz. It was launched on April 1, 1963 as a replacement of the defunct ARD 2 channel. It is run as a non-profit institution and gets its funding via television license fees and advertising revenues. It began broadcasting 24 hours a day on October 5, 1996.

ZDF Sport Live is the online streaming service that has allowed sports fans to follow their favorite disciplines while on-the-go. Over the years, the streaming service has provided live coverage of all the content broadcast by ZDF Sport, but it has also added exclusive content for online users.

Over the years, ZDF Sport Live has covered events such as the UEFA European Championship, the FIFA World Cup, the Summer Olympics, and the Winter Olympics. While some of those competitions have been covered in their entirety, others such as the FIFA World Cup or the UEFA Euro have been partially covered by the network. The best example of that is the 2018 FIFA World Cup, where ARD and ZDF shared coverage of 48 games, when the total amount of matches reaches 64.

ZDF, along with ARD, has also covered friendly and competitive matches featuring the German National Football Team for both men and women. The channel has also covered athletics competitions with a special focus on German athletes.

ZDF Sport Live’s coverage has also included the German Bundesliga, with highlights and occasional live games being broadcast by the channel.

ZDF Sport Live is not only available via a web browser, especially since the company developed apps for mobile phones and tablets. An app for Smart TVs has also been created, and the company has urged its fans to user that service to have a better online experience.