Germany’s only pay-television channel, Premiere, will pay about €1bn ($1.26bn) to show live Bundesliga football for four seasons from 2009, a vital but costly move for a franchise hammered since losing the rights at the last auction in late 2005.

The company’s victory in the auction, which was organised by the German football league, could turn out to be a triumph by Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp is Premiere’s largest shareholder, over his old German adversary Leo Kirch.