After launching a tender process across Europe last month, continental soccer body UEFA has today awarded broadcast rights to its major club competitions in several markets for the 2027-28 to 2030-31 cycle.
Most notably, Disney+ is a new entrant, with the streaming service to show the elite UEFA Champions League (UCL) for the first time after securing rights in Sweden.
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The platform will take over from Nordic media giant Viaplay, which holds UCL rights in the country through the 2026-27 season.
Viaplay has, however, managed to keep UCL rights in Denmark for the next cycle.
Disney+ has also renewed its exclusive deal to show UEFA’s secondary Europa League and third-tier Conference League in Sweden and Denmark.
The deal adds to its UEFA offering in the territories, as it also shows the Women’s Champions League.
Elsewhere, international sports streaming service DAZN, which shows the UCL in multiple territories, has renewed its deal in Portugal and added Austria to its portfolio for the next four-year period.
The OTT platform will share rights in Austria with pay-TV giant Sky, which has extended its agreement in the market.
DAZN will be the main UCL broadcaster in the country, showing almost all matches – a total of 186. One Tuesday game will be excluded from each matchday, with Sky to show the top match on that day as part of its package.
The Europa League and Conference League will continue to be shown in Austria by Canal Plus after it renewed its contract. The pay-TV broadcaster will exclusively air all 342 games.
Canal Plus currently holds a package of UCL rights along with Sky through the 2026-27 season. It broadcasts one Wednesday match from the UCL as well as a Thursday match from the Europa League or Conference League.
Under its present contract, Sky shows all Tuesday games and eight of the nine Wednesday UCL matches live and exclusively, meaning the broadcaster’s coverage of UEFA club competitions will significantly diminish from the 2027-28 campaign.
Commercial network ProSiebenSat.1’s Joyn streaming service and Puls 4 linear channel have secured co-exclusive rights for the UCL final and the Super Cup in Austria, meaning the competition’s climax will also be shown on free TV from the season after next.
DAZN’s extended deal in Portugal will also see the streaming service have most matches, including those featuring Portuguese clubs.
Pay-TV broadcaster SportTV has also renewed its contract and will continue to have the first-choice game each matchday.
SportTV will show the UCL final co-exclusively with Brazilian sports marketing agency LiveMode, which recently expanded outside its home market for the first time by launching a Portuguese digital channel.
In addition, DAZN keeps rights to the Europa League, Conference League, and Youth League. The platform will show a total of more than 500 UEFA club matches per year.
In the Republic of Ireland, pay-TV operator Premier Sports, which will continue to show the top-pick Tuesday night matches, with RTE keeping the first-pick match on Wednesdays.
All remaining UCL matches will be shown on Sky, which has also secured all Europa League and Conference League games.
Amazon will have co-exclusive rights to the UCL Tuesday first pick package, while the Paramount+ streaming service will have co-exclusive rights to Wednesday first pick games and all remaining UCL matches and highlights, including the final, as part of the deals previously concluded in the UK tender.
Meanwhile, renewed agreements for the UCL have also been struck in Norway, Switzerland, and Romania.
Norwegian commercial broadcaster TV2 has retained rights it has held exclusively in the country for almost five years. Before that, Nordic media giant Viaplay had held the rights since 1992.
Viaplay has, however, retained rights to the Europa League and Conference League in the market.
In Switzerland, telecommunications giant Swisscom will remain the primary rightsholder of the UCL and show all matches on its Blue Sport channel. Blue Sport has been the main UCL broadcaster in the country since 2018.
DAZN has rights to all Europa League and Conference League matches in the country, while Canal Plus will continue to show one match per day from the UCL and the Europa League or Conference League in French and on a co-exclusive basis.
In Romania, pay-TV network Digi Sport has extended its deal to show all UCL matches.
Among UEFA’s new partners is commercial broadcaster Nelonen in Finland, which has snapped up exclusive rights to all UCL games.
Rights to the Europa League and Conference League remain with Viaplay in the market.
UEFA began its tender process for rights in several European, Central American, and South American territories in early March, with a deadline of April 21 set for submissions, following which a rights auction took place.
The process was managed by sports agency Relevent Football Partners and UC3, the joint venture between UEFA and the European Club Association (ECA) that controls the marketing, sales, and delivery of commercial rights for the club competitions.
Other territories in the tender included Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Central America, Czechia, Mexico, Slovakia, and South America (except Brazil).
Rights to UEFA competitions were already allocated in the 'Big Five' European markets of the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France late last year.
Those were the first tender processes to be managed by Relevent, which replaced UEFA’s longstanding sales partner Team Marketing in that position in late 2024.
Aside from the key quintet of European markets listed above, UEFA and Relevent have also selected one or more preferred bidders in Albania, Kosovo, and Japan, as well as for in-ship and in-flight rights (those rights have been held since the category was brought in by the Sport24 service).
