Broadcasters in Germany, Austria and Switzerland must submit their first-round offers for 2024-27 Uefa Champions League broadcast rights by November 14 after Team Marketing kicked off the sales process.
The agency, which is selling the Uefa club competitions rights across the next cycle in all markets except the USA, issued the invitation to submit offer in the DACH region earlier this week.
Rights to the Uefa Champions League are being sold together with a new Champions League ‘opening tournament’ and the Uefa Youth League. Rights to the Europa League, Europa Conference League and new ‘Uefa Europa Super Cup’ are being sold together.
The launch of the sales process in German-speaking countries follows the launch on October 3 in the Netherlands. Dutch broadcasters must lodge their first-round offers by 10am (CET) on November 2.
Team has already struck lucrative rights agreements for the new cycle in the UK and France and also completed its rights sales in the Balkans.
Rights to the Champions League are held in Germany by subscription streaming broadcaster DAZN, internet retail giant Amazon and public broadcaster ZDF in deals struck in late 2019 and running from 2021-22 to 2023-24.
DAZN acquired exclusive live rights to the first-pick Wednesday matches, and all remaining live rights except the first-pick Tuesday match. Its inventory includes pay-television rights to the final and exclusive rights to the Uefa Super Cup. Amazon picked up exclusive live rights to the first-pick match on Tuesday. ZDF acquired live free-to-air rights to the final, along with match highlights from both Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The sales process ended the long-standing coverage on pay-TV broadcaster Sky Deutschland.
ZDF attracted an average audience of 8.4 million viewers (a 34.5-per-cent share) for the 2021-22 Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool.
RTL acquired exclusive rights in Germany to the Uefa Europa League and Uefa Europa Conference League across the 2021-24 period. The commercial broadcaster showcases the matches on free-to-air channels RTL and Nitro, as well as on its subscription streaming service RTL+.
RTL netted an average of 9 million viewers and 39.5-per-cent market share in May as the Bundesliga’s Eintracht Frankfurt defeated Rangers to win the Europa League. The commercial broadcaster went on to buy sublicensed rights (from DAZN) to the Uefa Super Cup final between Eintracht and Real Madrid.
In Austria, pay-television rights to all Uefa club competition matches are currently held by Sky.
Commercial free-to-air network ServusTV acquired non-exclusive live rights to the Champions League first-pick Wednesday match and final (plus highlights). It also secured non-exclusive live rights to the first-pick Europa League or Europa Conference League match. Public broadcaster ORF holds rights to the second-pick matches from the second- and third-tier clubs competitions.
During the last rights auction in Switzerland, public broadcaster SRG SSR, which had broadcast Europe’s elite club tournament since its inception in 1992, lost out to publishing group CH Media as the free-to-air rights-holder.
Pay-television broadcaster Blue, which holds exclusive rights in Switzerland to all three Uefa club competitions during the 2021-24 cycle, negotiated a sublicensing agreement with CH Media, which airs the matches on its 3+ and TV24 channels.
SRG SSR did manage to secure highlights rights during the current cycle.
The 2018-21 cycle represented a strategic shift by Uefa and Team Marketing to derive greater value from deals with pay-television broadcasters. Indeed, upon announcing its agreement in the summer of 2017, SRG SSR claimed to be the “only free-to-air broadcaster in Western Europe to have succeeded in securing rights to football’s showpiece competitions”.
During that auction, in which the overall rights fee more than trebled, SRG SSR’s live Champions League output was diluted. The public broadcaster retained rights to one of its two fixtures per match week and also secured a package of Europa League rights.
Dutch telecoms operator Ziggo holds rights to all Champions League matches and airs some on basic-tier sports channel Ziggo Sport. Commercial network RTL acquired a package of free-to-air rights during the 2021-24 cycle.
Rights in the Netherlands to the Europa League and Europa Conference League are held by pay-TV broadcaster ESPN and commercial broadcaster Talpa TV.
Team is also currently in the market in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Cyprus.
The award of US broadcast rights to Relevent Sports Group during Uefa’s international tender process broke Team’s 30-year, exclusive grip on the global commercial rights for Uefa club competitions. In August, Paramount Global retained English-language rights to Uefa club competitions in the US market in a landmark six-year deal worth around $250m (€256m) per season.