Uefa

Latest Features

Uefa secured a 40-per-cent headline increase on the value of its sub-Saharan Africa free-to-air European Championship package in a third successive deal with the TV Media Sport agency.

Uefa has increased the value of its lower-tier club competition media rights in Germany by over 40 per cent through commercial broadcaster RTL’s acquisition of exclusive, multi-platform rights to the Europa League and newly created Europa Conference League.

Uefa has continued its success in the DACH region by more than doubling the value of its club competition rights in Austria and significantly increasing them in Switzerland.

In the latest interactive monthly data report, SportBusiness Media analyses the media-rights landscape in the Middle East and Africa.

Uefa’s Europa League revenue in France will fall in the 2021-24 cycle given limited interest in the property in the wake of the fierce contest for rights to the top-tier Champions League.

Irish public broadcaster RTÉ is to show the national team’s play-off for this summer’s Euro 2020 football championship.
USA

Major sports federations have urged the US government to keep Saudi Arabia on its main list of countries that do not adequately protect intellectual property as a result of the widespread piracy of content…

The TV Media Sport agency has acquired a package of exclusive free-to-air rights to Euro 2020 across sub-Saharan Africa, marking the third consecutive time it has acquired the rights to the European Championships

Commercial broadcaster RTL has acquired exclusive rights in Germany to the Uefa Europa League and the newly-created Uefa Europa Conference League for the new cycle, from 2021-22 to 2023-24

Features

Uefa has increased the value of Champions League rights in Germany by nearly 70 per cent in the 2021-24 cycle, driven by an intense broadcaster battle in which DAZN ousted Sky Deutschland and Amazon made another foray into premium football.

TF1 and M6’s joint acquisition of Euro 2020 free-to-air rights was struck at a similar per-match fee as the one they paid for the last comparable edition of the tournament, in 2012.

There are two truisms in the sale of sports media rights which at first glance appear difficult to reconcile. One is that every market has a unique set of characteristics and the value earned is contingent upon those characteristics at the moment the rights are sold. The other is that the early deals in a market-by-market sales cycle create a psychological benchmark which affects how sales in the following markets play out.

Mediapro’s accusation of impropriety in the Uefa Champions League tender process in France has cast a cloud over a record rights-fee outcome for Uefa in the country. But the agency’s threat to take Uefa to court may not be credible, industry experts told SportBusiness Media.
USA

Competition to create effective digital offerings in the US drove a hike in value for Uefa’s club competitions for the 2021-22 to 2023-24 cycle. CBS overcame strong opposition to surprise the market in acquiring English-language rights, while Univision renewed its high-performing Spanish-language rights.

BT’s huge outlay for Uefa club competition rights in the 2021-24 cycle was driven by the UK telco's need to retain a viable sports broadcasting proposition.

Uefa, European football’s governing body, could be on the verge of a sharp downturn in Champions League media-rights revenues for the 2021-24 cycle, with specific factors in the key UK and France markets exacerbating a broader price correction already anticipated for similar high-profile properties.

Uefa is close to completing a record-breaking deal for rights to the 2024 European Championship with Deutsche Telekom, in what would be the largest fee ever received by Uefa for European Championship rights in a single market.

At stake is the future funding of elite sport through the sale of media rights.

The BBC has paid around ten-times more for the UK rights to the 2021 Uefa Women’s Euro than commercial broadcaster Channel 4 paid for the 2017 tournament, SportBusiness Media understands.

Indonesian media company Elang Mahkota Teknologi (Emtek) has agreed a two-season deal with Uefa for Champions League and Europa League rights, which became available after the collapse of the rights-holder’s deal with the Futbal Momentum Asia agency.

Uefa will go to market later this year with the rights to the Champions League and Europa League under pressure from Europe’s top clubs to at least maintain the kind of growth it enjoyed in the current cycle. But there are reasons why that will be a massive challenge.

Pan-African pay-television broadcaster StarTimes paid a cut-price sum to acquire rights to a host of Uefa national-team events following the demise of rival broadcaster Kwesé TV’s pay-television arm, SportBusiness Media understands.

In the latest interactive monthly data report, SportBusiness Media analyses the media-rights landscape in Latin America.

In the latest interactive monthly data report, SportBusiness Media analyses the media-rights landscape in Latin America.

Uefa’s national-team rights revenue in Japan is set to shrink in the 2018-19 to 2021-22 cycle, covering Euro 2020, with demand hit by next year’s Tokyo Olympics and last year’s collapse of the MP & Silva agency.

Uefa increased the value of its European Championship in Portugal by about 35 per cent last week after delaying the tender process proved successful thanks to the arrival of sports broadcaster Eleven in the country.

The beIN Media Group has so far been the main beneficiary of the DAZN Group’s decision to delay the launch of its OTT service in Southeast Asia.

Uefa, European football’s governing body, is thought to be close to a deal with telco PCCW for Euro 2020 rights in Hong Kong.