November 21 – Claiming ‘unprecedented interest’, UEFA’s joint venture commercial arm UC3 has unveiled a raft of new deals and broadcasters (preferred bidders) for its club competitions in Europe’s top five markets of UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and France.
US media powerhouse Paramount is set to become a major player in the UEFA Champions League in the UK and Germany from 2027. In Spain telecoms giant Telefonica have scooped up rights to all UEFA’s club competitions, sharing only the UCL final with state broadcaster RTVE.
All deals are reckoned to be achieving record numbers. The Paramount acquisition in the UK for the four-year package is reckoned to be “well above” the current £1 billion deal held by TNT Sports.
Telefonica will pay €1.5 billion across the four season term starting in 2027. In a regulatory filing the telecoms giant sad the deal is still provisional but approval expected in the coming days. The Spanish operator will pay €366 million per season, roughly 14% more than in the previous rights cycle.
In Germany Paramount+ takes over from DAZN as the competition’s new domestic home. Paramount will have the Tuesday night first pick and all remaining matches and highlights. Prime will have Wednesday night first pick while DAZN will pick up Europa League and Conference League rights.
France, Canal+ has successfully retained its full suite of UEFA club competitions – the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League – for the entire 2027–2031 cycle, fending off interest from Paramount+, which had been widely expected to bid aggressively across the continent.
Paramount’s move into Europe marks the company’s biggest step in sport so far and particularly in the UK where it will force a reshaping of an already crowded broadcast landscape with fans likely forced to acquire yet another subscription. In the UK, Amazon Prime will retain its Tuesday night first-pick.
A typical match-watching UK household in 2024 already pays close to £90 a month for live football – including £50 for Sky Sports, £30.99 for TNT, and £8.99 for Amazon Prime – before factoring in Premier Sports or Women’s Champions League coverage on Disney+.
Paramount already holds the rights to the Champions League in the US, airing matches via CBS and the Paramount+ streaming service. But its UK and Germany model remains undecided.
It is unclear whether games will sit inside a standard Paramount+ subscription, require the creation of a dedicated football tier, or be bundled through existing partners like Sky in the UK, which already offers a basic ad-supported Paramount+ package to Sky Cinema customers.
Paramount’s sports push seems unlikely to stop with UEFA’s club competitions, having been linked with a bid for Warner Bros Discovery, owner of TNT, sports properties.
The outlier in the new deals is Spain with its all-rights deal with Telefinica. Football is a core pillar of Telefónica’s business strategy in Spain, with premium sports content helping the company draw in and hold on to high-value customers through its pay-TV bundles.
Last year, Telefonica won the rights to broadcast matches of Spain’s top-flight football league for €1.3 billion. For years, regulators required the company to resell its broadcast rights to rivals at prices set by the watchdog. That changed on May 1, when those rules expired.
The rights tender was launched in early October by UC3 and its sales representative, Relevent Football Partners, and was targeted at a rapidly evolving rights market that was recognised as being “driven by the rise of global, digital-first platforms delivering innovative fan experiences, (but) alongside the enduring commitment of established broadcasters to provide broad visibility for the competitions worldwide,” said a UEFA press statement.
“This balanced approach enables UC3 to harness the strengths of both emerging global players and trusted partners, while longer-term agreements provide greater consistency for rights holders and fans, ensuring stability and sustained visibility over time.”
All this sounds good but ultimately success will be in the test of Europe’s big market pay-tv buyers. If they don’t buy it could be goodbye.
Preferred bidders by market:
France
– Canal+ (all UMCCs rights)
– TF1 (co-exclusive rights to the UEFA Champions League [UCL] Final)
Germany
– Paramount+ (UCL Tuesday first pick package and all remaining UCL matches and highlights including the UCL Final)
– Prime Video (UCL Wednesday first pick package)
– ZDF (UCL Wednesday highlights on a co-exclusive basis)
– DAZN (all UEFA Europa League [UEL]/UEFA Conference League [UECL] rights)
Italy
– Prime Video (UCL Wednesday first pick package)
– Sky (all remaining UCL matches and highlights, UEL/UECL rights)
Spain
– Telefónica (all UMCC rights)
– RTVE (co-exclusive rights to the UCL Final)
UK
– Paramount+ (UCL Wednesday first pick package and all remaining UCL matches and highlights including UCL Final)
– Prime Video (UCL Tuesday first pick package)
– BBC (UCL Wednesday highlights on a co-exclusive basis)
– Sky (all UEL and UECL rights)
Contact the writers of this story at moc.l1763736690labto1763736690ofdlr1763736690owedi1763736690sni@n1763736690osloh1763736690cin.l1763736690uap1763736690, moc.l1763736690labto1763736690ofdlr1763736690owedi1763736690sni@g1763736690niwe.1763736690yrrah1763736690, and moc.l1763736690labto1763736690ofdlr1763736690owedi1763736690sni@i1763736690tnuk.1763736690ardni1763736690mas1763736690
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