Team Marketing has initiated the broadcast rights sales process for the Uefa club competitions from 2021-22 to 2023-24 in Canada and an array of countries and territories in Southeast Asia.
Along with the invitations to submit offers in the North American country, Uefa’s appointed sales agency for men’s club competitions has invited broadcasters to bid in: Malaysia and Brunei; the Philippines; Singapore; and Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
Team has issued concurrent ISOs for the top-tier Uefa Champions League (and Uefa Super Cup), and the Europa League and Europa Conference League, with rights to the second-tier and new third-tier competition packaged together as standard.
The first-round bid deadline in Canada falls at 5pm (CEST) on May 18, with the deadline in the Southeast Asian markets coming one day earlier (at 10am).
In going to market, Team and Uefa are pressing ahead with the international rights sales process for the new cycle. This comes despite the uncertainty created by Sunday’s announcement of a ‘European Super League’ featuring 12 heavyweight clubs from England, Italy and Spain.
A statement from the European Super League has said that the tournament is “intended to commence as soon as practicable”.
Chairman Florentino Pérez of Real Madrid told Spanish television programme El Chiringuito de Jugones that the clubs want to start the competition in August if a deal can be struck with Uefa or, if they cannot reach an agreement, they will “wait a year”.
Australian streaming platform Sports Flick said late last night that it would not be finalising its Champions League rights deal for the 2021-24 cycle in part due to the uncertainty created by the ESL announcement. However, there were understood to be doubts around Sports Flick’s financial guarantees.
Subscription OTT broadcaster DAZN holds the Uefa club competitions rights in Canada during the current 2018-21 cycle. During the previous cycle, pay-television broadcasters TSN and beIN held the rights.
DAZN also acquired the Champions League rights in various Southeast territories from 2018-19 to 2020-21, including all of those in which the sales processes have now begun. However, DAZN looked to terminate its agreements with Uefa last year amid a step back from the region (and a focus instead on its boxing-focused global streaming platform).
The OTT subscription broadcaster had already sublicensed non-exclusive rights in Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore to pay-television broadcaster beIN Sports.
At present, the Champions League and Europa League competitions are streamed in the Philippines, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia on Uefa’s own Uefa.tv platform. Previously, they had been streamed on the DAZN-owned Goal.com website.
The various 2021-24 sales processes in Southeast Asia follow on from the launching in December of the ISOs in Korea, Mongolia, Myanmar and Vietnam. In Indonesia, media group Emtek renewed its rights for the Uefa club competitions for the next three-year cycle after the auction was initiated in October.
Team and Uefa are still to go to market in China and Japan.