eFootball: DFL begins partnership with ProSiebenSat.1 Group
20 December 2018 – The DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga and 7Sports, the sports business unit of the ProSiebenSat.1 Group, have entered into a partnership on the coverage of the VBL Club Championship. In future, the free TV channel ProSieben MAXX will show a selected match every week, which will be recorded as a featured match in a specially developed eSports studio for broadcast on TV and live streaming on ran.de and prosiebenmaxx.de. Each fixture comprises three single games – two in one-on-one mode and the third in two-on-two mode. Additional news and highlights can be accessed via ran.de and eSports.com.
From 17 January until the end of the VBL Club Championship on 14 March, ProSieben MAXX will broadcast a total of nine featured matches, one every Thursday at 8:15 p.m. Boasting high production standards and additional content in the form of pre-match reports, analysis and interviews, the shows will be presented by Max Zielke supported by a rotating cast of commentators and experts. Highlights of other selected fixtures will also be shown, meaning that fans can enjoy an overview of the VBL Club Championship action every Thursday evening.
Fixture list published
On Thursday, the DFL also published the official fixture list for the 2018–19 VBL Club Championship. The season has a total of 21 match days, with eleven fixtures on each match day. This means the first season will feature 231 fixtures with a total of 693 single games. The first featured match of the season on 17 January sees SV Werder Bremen taking on RB Leipzig. A download link for the full fixture list can be found at the end of this news story.
The VBL Club Championship, which has been newly founded by the DFL and EA SPORTS as part of the TAG Heuer Virtual Bundesliga (VBL), will see a total of 22 Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 clubs competing for the title of German eFootball club champion for the first time. In 2012, the DFL became the first professional football league to have its own eFootball competition when it launched the VBL in partnership with EA SPORTS. This was also the first competition of a professional league to be directly integrated into the EA SPORTS FIFA game series. Further information on the VBL, statistics, matches and participating clubs, as well as an overview of when and where all of the fixtures in the VBL Club Championship will take place, can be found at virtual.bundesliga.com.