On November 30, sealed envelopes will be handed to a notary at the Turkish Football Federation’s Riva complex outside Istanbul, and the next five years of Turkish football’s finances could be settled within hours. The TFF moved the tender for Süper Lig and 1. Lig broadcast rights forward from January 13, 2027, and the winning bidder will hold the league from the 2027-28 season.
The stakes are unusually high. The current rights holder, beIN Media Group, pays $182 million plus VAT a season under its 2024 deal. Turkish clubs, many of them heavily indebted, have been reported to want more than double that, with some club voices pointing to $500 million a year as the figure Turkish football “deserves.”
Whether anyone will pay it depends on a harder question: in 2026, who actually pays for Turkish football?
From $500 million to $80 million, and halfway back
The Süper Lig’s broadcasting history is a lesson in what currency risk does to a sports media deal. In November 2016, Digiturk, by then owned by Qatar’s beIN, won the rights from 2017-18 for $500 million a year plus VAT. It was a record, and at the time it put Turkey sixth in Europe for league broadcast income.
The headline number did not last. Half of the fee was payable in Turkish lira at an exchange rate fixed at 3.26 to the dollar, and as the lira slid, the dollar value reaching clubs shrank every season. Turkish reports put clubs’ losses from the fixed rate at more than 900 million lira within three years.
By 2022-23, the rights were worth roughly $80 million a season. beIN cut its offer that year partly over digital piracy, which it said was eroding the value of exclusivity. The 2024 tender recovered some ground: after a chaotic process in which the TFF cancelled its first round, beIN retained all domestic and international rights through 2026-27 at $182 million a season plus VAT, beating a challenge from Saran Media, the owner of S Sport.
Who pays today
The money behind the Süper Lig flows from four sources, and only one of them is large.
- Domestic pay-TV subscribers. The core revenue is Turkish households paying for Digiturk and beIN Sports. Digiturk has been reported to have more than 3.5 million subscribers worldwide, but it competes with widespread illegal streaming that has dogged the platform for years.
- The diaspora. Turkish communities across Europe and North America pay for Digiturk Play directly. Its sports package runs around €99 to €119 a year in Europe, £119 in the UK and about $229 a year in North America.
- International sublicensing. beIN carries the league on its own channels in markets such as the U.S. and Australia, with distribution through services including Fubo and Fanatiz.
- Betting and data. Official live feeds sold to international betting platforms are a growing, though rarely disclosed, part of the mix.
For clubs, the result is a smaller slice of the pie than headlines suggest. Turkish reporting this season estimates that broadcast income makes up between 5.7% and 14.7% of revenue at the four biggest clubs, with roughly 9 billion lira expected to be distributed in total. In England, Spain or Italy, broadcasting is usually the single largest line on a club’s income statement. In Turkey, it is one revenue stream among several, alongside sponsorship, matchday, UEFA prize money and player sales.
Five packages, and a crowded field
The TFF has split the 2027-32 rights into five packages, to be awarded through sealed bids followed by an open auction. Data rights generated by matches are excluded and will be sold separately.
| Package | What it covers |
|---|---|
| A | Live domestic rights to every Süper Lig match |
| B | 1. Lig live rights, radio for both leagues, and extended highlights |
| C | International broadcast rights to both leagues |
| D | Streams on international betting sites and digital highlights |
| E | Every package combined |
The split invites new entrants. Alongside beIN, Turkish media have named Saran Group, the state broadcaster TRT, Turkcell and Türk Telekom as likely bidders, and there are unconfirmed reports that Amazon could team up with Saran with an offer close to the $400 million a season the TFF is reportedly hoping for.
Package D is the quietest line and arguably the most revealing. Betting operators buy official streams because live, in-play wagering on a phone now drives much of their volume, and Turkish fans are an overwhelmingly mobile audience. Search behavior makes the point: queries such as hititbet mobil giriş adresi güncel link reflect how many fans look for current mobile access to betting platforms on matchday, partly because Turkish authorities routinely block unlicensed domains and operators respond by rotating addresses. For the TFF, that demand is a revenue opportunity it can now price separately, rather than value buried inside a single broadcaster’s deal.
What to watch on November 30
Three questions will decide whether this tender resets Turkish football’s economics or repeats its past.
- What currency is the deal in? The 2017 contract showed that a dollar headline means little if part of it is paid in lira at a fixed rate. Clubs will be watching the payment terms as closely as the total.
- Does the field hold? Saran publicly accused the TFF of an unfair process after the 2024 tender, and threatened legal action. The federation has again reserved the right to reject every bid or cancel the tender, and one Turkish commentator has already suggested a one-year extension with beIN is possible.
- Can anyone fix piracy? Every bidder is pricing exclusivity. If illegal streams keep eating into subscriptions, the gap between what clubs want and what broadcasters will pay is unlikely to close, whoever wins.
The answer to who pays for Turkish football is, for now, mostly a single Qatari-owned broadcaster and the subscribers it can hold on to. On November 30, the TFF finds out whether a wider market is finally willing to share the bill.
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