TNT Sports, the UK pay-TV broadcaster owned by media giant Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) will not provide the showpiece finals of European soccer body UEFA’s trio of club competitions on free-to-air television this year, breaking a tradition spanning back to the establishment of the competition in 1992.
The finals of the UEFA Europa League (May 20), Conference League (May 27), and Champions League (May 30), will be broadcast in the UK on the TNT Sports linear channel and WBD’s HBO Max OTT streaming service.
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This comes despite the fact that English clubs will feature in each of the finals, with Arsenal (Champions League), Aston Villa (Europa League), and Crystal Palace (Conference League) all chasing historic silverware.
In previous years, since TNT (and its predecessor BT Sports) acquired the rights in 2015, the finals had been streamed for free, first via the YouTube streaming service, and then via WBD’s Discovery+ platform in 2024 (which is now HBO Max).
That move two years ago, a means of enticing new subscribers to Discovery+ without the burden of having them pay, perhaps preempted this latest move.
UEFA is reportedly disgruntled with the move to paywall the finals coverage.
The move may stem from the fact that TNT Sports are set to lose the rights to all three competitions in the coming years.
From the 2027-28 campaign onwards, rival media giant Paramount’s Paramount+ streaming service is taking over the rights to the Champions League, while UK giant Sky (owned by Comcast) has usurped the rights to the Europa League and Conference League.
The lack of long-term continuity beyond the end of next season could be a key reason behind TNT Sports’ drive to maximize short-term revenues by pay-walling its most prominent offerings.
Another potential factor may be the looming acquisition of WBD by Paramount, which could see the exercise rendered moot anyway, should Paramount roll in its own service with TNT Sports post acquisition, the rights (to the Champions League at least) would remain with the sports broadcast, which has far more brand cache in the UK than Paramount’s services.
Paramount’s offer stands at around $111 billion (including debt), coming in at $31 per share, and the firm is in the driver's seat in the race to acquire one of its biggest rivals.
