Axel Springer CEO says Bundesliga rights not a must-have

By Harro Ten Wolde FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German publisher Axel Springer plans to participate in an upcoming auction of broadcasting rights for Bundesliga soccer, but will not be dragged into an irrational bidding war, its chief executive said on Wednesday. Germany's soccer league (DFL) wants to double its proceeds from the auction of rights for the four seasons starting 2017/18, aiming to rake in 1.1-1.5 billion euros ($1.3-1.7 billion) per season. This compares with an average of 748 million euros for the previous four years. [nL5N17F2TH] At the previous auction, Axel Springer won the rights to broadcast clips from matches on its websites, hoping to attract subscribers to the online edition of its Bild tabloid. That didn't work out as well as hoped, Axel Springer Chief Executive Mathias Doepfner told reporters during a conference call about first-quarter earnings. "We are happy with the current package we have but we had expected a bigger effect," Doepfner said, adding about a quarter of new subscribers joined Bild online because of the online Bundesliga clips. Close to half of Germany's population of 81 million watches the Bundesliga on television, with many viewing highlights packages on free-to-air channels. The upcoming auction, which is planned to finish before early June when the Euro 2016 soccer tournament starts, will this time include a rule that no single buyer can acquire all media rights for live games as Rupert Murdoch's Sky did last time. Apart from Sky, Britain's Perform Group, German free-to-air broadcasters ProSiebenSat.1 and RTL , Discovery's Eurosport and Constantin Media's Sport1 are seen as potential bidders. Doepfner said Springer would be a disciplined bidder. "If the rights end up going for bigger amounts of money compared to the previous auction, I think it will be very unlikely that we will get what we want, because to us it is not worth it," Doepfner said. ($1 = 0.8780 euros) (Editing by Mark Potter)