Soccer and TV: a heated game.

For Germans, soccer is - next to cars - the most important hobby in the world. Nine of the 10 highest ranking sports events on TV in 1997 were soccer matches. Before Boris Becker and Steffi Graf entered the scene and shifted some attention to tennis, soccer pioneers like Franz Beckenbauer and Uwe Seeler, who built their careers in the '60s and '70s, were national heroes. Millions of little boys playing in the streets and in clubs have made soccer a folk sport.

So the outcry was enormous when Leo Kirch, Germany's powerful media mogul, announced his intention to sell the rights for big sports events to pay-TV. In a survey conducted by the magazine TV Movie, 85 percent of participants said that they want free access to important soccer matches. Kirch owns, among other things, the TV rights for the World Soccer Championships in 2002 and 2006, for which he paid 3.4 billion marks (roughly U.S. $1.9 billion).

Media guardians and politicians are now concerned that soccer and sports events in general will disappear from free TV, where they traditionally appear, and will be reserved for the wealthy minority of TV consumers who have access to the pay-TV channel Premiere. Premiere reaches 1.6 million of the 33 million households in the country; its programming consists of popular sports events and American blockbuster movies. Kirch owns half of the channel, while the other half belongs to Kirch's former archrival, Bertelsmann.

In response to these developments, the governors of the 16 German states, who determine the legal groundwork of German broadcasting, agreed in December to implement a "national protection list" of important sports events that must remain on free TV. This list includes all soccer matches of international relevance (like European or World Championships) as well as the Olympic Winter and Summer Games. At press time, the draft that will be added to the existing broadcasting bill was expected to pass the German Bundesrat (the legislative body consisting of all federal states) in mid-March.

Kirch protested the impending decision, arguing that it would interfere with ownership rights that originate in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. But Heide Simonis, the governor of the Northern State Schleswig-Holstein, said that the protected list would not contradict ownership rights concerning the broadcasting of the events and stressed that property rights should meet certain social standards conforming to the principles of solidarity in Germany.

So far, Kirch has not decided whether he wants to go to the Federal Constitutional Court and take action against the decision. "There's still a lot of time to come to an agreement until 2002," a Kirch spokesperson said. The Association of Commercial Broadcasters (VPRT) supported Kirch and said it would not accept a law about sports rights, while public TV stations ARD and ZDF enthusiastically agreed to the new law. ZDF President Dieter Stolte called the protected list "a victory for the TV audience and sports in general."

Soccer has become a political issue in Germany for other reasons as well. In February the Federal Constitutional Court decided that TV stations have the right to broadcast short 90-second clips from soccer matches in their programs but that, in a departure from pass practice, stations should pay for the footage. Kurt Beck, governor of Rhineland-Palatinate and head of the Broadcasting Commission, applauded the Federal Supreme Court's decision to support the interests of the German people and federal states, which increasingly must fight efforts of the government to withdraw their claims.

The power of soccer lobbyists was demonstrated in another attempt by the German government to support the Central Association of Soccer Clubs, DFB (Deutscher Fussball Bund). According to a decision of the Federal Supreme Court, the DFB is supposed to cease its practice of marketing the TV broadcasting rights for European Champions Cup matches centrally, leaving the responsibility to the individual soccer clubs. The German antitrust commission maintains that soccer clubs are private enterprises that have to follow the rules of competition.

DFB President Egidius Braun, however, argues that some clubs are financially weaker than the big soccer clubs like Bavaria's Bayern Muenchen. He complained about the "growing egotism in fighting for financial support" and spoke of the balancing function of his association. The German minister of trade, Guenther Rexroth, agreed and said that the present system, in which the biggest and wealthiest clubs pay compensation for the smaller clubs, "should be maintained."

The government and states agree that the present practice of centrally marketing TV rights should be maintained "in the interest of the public." But they have one powerful opponent: the European Commission, which voiced doubts about German plans to implement a law that would form an exception to European antitrust rules. A spokesperson said that there is no way to exclude sports from national or European fair-trade laws.