Windhorst's Bond Trades Ensnared German Property Investor
Aggregate Holdings, the Germany-focused real estate company helmed by tycoon Cevdet Caner, was one of the emblematic victims of rising interest rates. Formerly known for its string of properties on Berlin's shopping boulevard Kurfurstendamm, it slowly lost prized asset after prized asset to creditors before collapsing in court-supervised restructuring proceedings.
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New York Times
34 minutes ago
- New York Times
Why the Bundesliga has turned to Mark Goldbridge and YouTube to grow its audience
The Bundesliga's new roster of UK broadcasters will certainly draw comment. This morning, The Athletic revealed that the Deutsche Fussball Liga (DFL) has struck a new agreement with the BBC, Amazon Prime and its existing broadcast partner Sky Sports — but that YouTube channels The Overlap and That's Entertainment, hosted by the online personality Mark Goldbridge, will also be showing 20 live games this season, starting with Bayern Munich's match against RB Leipzig on Friday night. Advertisement Sky will continue to show the Saturday night game, which is often the biggest of the round, and Amazon has exclusive rights to the Sunday afternoon matches. But Friday evenings will see the start of a new, free-to-air approach, where the BBC and the two YouTube channels, alongside the Bundesliga's official channel, will share non-exclusive rights to the opening fixture of the weekend. The aim is straightforward: to get as many people engaging with German football as possible. But understanding the Bundesliga's approach — and why it has been willing to entrust YouTube channels with no experience of broadcasting live matches — requires perspective. In December 2024, the DFL, which operates the two Bundesliga divisions, signed a lucrative domestic broadcasting contract worth €1.3billion (£1.2bn; $1.5bn at current rates) per season for the next four years, a two per cent increase on the previous deal, which ranked it second among the top five European leagues (behind the Premier League). However, increasing the value of the Bundesliga's foreign broadcasting rights has been a long-standing challenge. While the Premier League earns €1.69bn per season from the sale of its broadcasting rights overseas, the equivalent packages are worth €983m for La Liga, €406.7m for Serie A and just €263m per season for the Bundesliga. The objective is not to catch the Premier League or battle its financial primacy. Neither is a realistic aim because of the same restraints that explain why the DFL has been willing to take such a bold step. With a few exceptions, the DFL's member clubs are governed by what is known as the 50+1 rule. Until 1998, private ownership of German teams was prohibited, but with the increasing wealth of leagues across Europe during that decade, that old ethos became incompatible with the desire to be competitive in the Champions League. Advertisement The compromise was the 50+1 rule. It mandated that football clubs could become public limited companies separate from their original member-run organisations, many of which played multiple sports, but only on the condition that majority control (literally, 50 per cent of shares, plus one) remained with the members. For instance, while Audi, Allianz and Adidas each own a 8.33 per cent share in Bayern Munich, the football club, the remaining 75 per cent are in the hands of paying club members. The effect of 50+1 was to make clubs accountable to their members and preserve and protect many of the virtues that German football is known for. Ticket prices are low. Atmospheres are buoyant. Stadiums have a distinctly regional feel. The compromise, if that is the right word, is that it prevents the wholesale investment that has transformed English football and attracted battalions of marketable stars and commercial partners by the dozen. Endowing fans with such agency — effectively making board members answerable to supporters — can also have a limiting effect commercially. In February 2024, for instance, the DFL was forced to abandon its plans to negotiate a €1bn investment deal with a private equity firm after widespread, sustained protests by fans disrupted weeks of fixtures. That power also makes hosting Bundesliga games abroad a practical impossibility. Such a move would never be tolerated or accepted by a footballing environment that remains deeply suspicious of commercialism and militantly on guard against any move in that direction. So, while La Liga is moving closer to hosting a game in Miami and Italy and Spain have already exported their Super Cups to the Middle East, the Bundesliga must remain strictly domestic. Its pursuit of foreign markets can never include staging a game outside Germany. It drastically narrows the avenues for growth. Without the star power of the Premier League or the capacity to export the authentic product — a competitive game — the DFL, on behalf of its clubs and with the aim of growing its appeal to foreign broadcasters, must be more creative. And that is the lens through which to view this new broadcasting agreement. Appearing on the BBC and Sky Sports provides prestige and reach to traditional viewers, while the YouTube streams could attract new followers across a medium that younger generations are more likely to use, but that itself caters to different types of fans, with contrasting interests and habits. Advertisement It could be divisive and in some quarters, it will be unpopular. The hope, though, is that momentum acquired with those new channels can be translated into future growth and more valuable broadcasting contracts down the line. For now, that remains an uncertain equation and an optimistic view on where this might lead, but it is a creative approach to a growth problem for which there is no obvious answer. (Top photos: Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane and Mark Goldbridge; Getty Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
Bloomberg
2 hours ago
- Bloomberg
German 30-Year Borrowing Costs Climb to Highest Since 2011
German 30-year yields climbed to the highest in fourteen years, the latest evidence of growing pressure on longer-dated bonds. Yields on 30-year notes rose eight basis points to 3.30%, the highest since 2011 as bond buyers demanded higher term premia — the extra money that investors demand to lend for longer. Yields on similar—maturity bonds in the rest of the euro region, and in the UK, also moved higher, as did those on US Treasuries.
2 hours ago
Sen. Lindsey Graham says Trump ready to ‘crush' Russian economy if Putin avoids talks with Zelenskyy
WASHINGTON -- Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday that he believes President Donald Trump is prepared to 'crush' Russia's economy with a new wave of sanctions if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the coming weeks. Graham, who spoke with Trump on Tuesday morning, has pushed the president for months to support his sweeping bipartisan sanctions bill that would impose steep tariffs on countries that are fueling Russia's invasion of Ukraine by buying its oil, gas, uranium, and other exports. The legislation has the backing of 85 senators, but Trump has yet to endorse it. Republican leaders have said they won't move without him. 'If we don't have this thing moving in the right direction by the time we get back, then I think that plan B needs to kick in,' Graham said in a phone interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. The Senate, now away from Washington for the August recess, is scheduled to return in September. Graham's call with Trump came less than 24 hours after high-stakes meetings at the White House with Zelenskyy and several European leaders. Trump and the leaders emerged from those talks sounding optimistic, with the expectation being that a Putin and Zelenskyy sit-down will happen soon. Still, Trump's comments to Graham, one of his top congressional allies, mark the latest sign that pressure is building — not just on Putin, but on Trump as well. 'Trump believes that if Putin doesn't do his part, that he's going to have to crush his economy. Because you've got to mean what you say,' Graham told reporters in South Carolina on Tuesday. As Congress prepares to return to session in early September, the next few weeks could become a defining test of whether lawmakers and international allies are prepared to act on their own if Trump doesn't follow through. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the lead Democrat pushing the bill with Graham, says there is a 'lot of reason for skepticism and doubt' after the meetings with Trump, especially because Putin has not made any direct promises. He said the Russian leader has an incentive to play 'rope-a-dope' with Trump. 'The only way to bring Putin to the table is to show strength,' Blumenthal told the AP this week. 'What Putin understands is force and pressure.' Still, Republicans have shown little willingness to override Trump in his second term. They abruptly halted work on the sanctions bill before the August recess after Trump said the legislation may not be needed. Asked Tuesday in a phone interview whether the sanctions bill should be brought up even without Trump's support, Graham said, 'the best way to do it is with him.' 'There will come a point where if it's clear that Putin is not going to entertain peace, that President Trump will have to back up what he said he would do,' Graham said. 'And the best way to do it is have congressional blessing.' The legislation would impose tariffs of up to 500% on countries such as China and India, which together account for roughly 70% of Russia's energy trade. The framework has the support of many European leaders. Many of those same European leaders left the White House on Monday with a more hopeful tone. Zelenskyy called the meeting with Trump 'an important step toward ending this war.' German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that his expectations 'were not just met, they were exceeded.' Still, little concrete progress was visible on the main obstacles to peace. That deadlock likely favors Putin, whose forces continue to make steady, if slow, progress on the ground in Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters after talks at the White House that Trump believes a deal with Putin is possible. But he said sanctions remain on the table if the process fails.
