European soccer’s governing body UEFA and its partner agency Relevent Sports are launching an official match ball tender for the elite men’s UEFA Champions League (UCL) club competition, with several brands ready to battle German sportswear giant Adidas for a contract it has held for 25 years.
According to the New York Times, US heavyweight Nike and fellow German brand Puma are ready to rival Adidas, which is also seeking to renew its deal for another multi-year rights cycle.
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The winning bidder will secure the rights from the start of the 2027-28 season.
The Adidas match ball has become synonymous with the UCL, with the brand supplying the competition since 2001, when the sportswear company took the rights away from Nike.
Adidas is also the ball supplier for the major FIFA World Cup and UEFA European Championship national team tournaments.
The brand will also be returning as the official ball supplier for the top two German soccer divisions, the Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga, from the 2026-27 season, in a deal announced in March last year.
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By GlobalDataThe match ball tender process, which also includes the secondary Europa League and third-tier Conference League, is being managed by global sports commercial agency Relevent (through its dedicated Relevent Football Partners arm for UEFA dealings) 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.
French sports retailer Decathlon has provided the match balls for the Europa League and Conference League since 2024.
Both deals are set to expire at the end of the 2026-2027 season, with the New York Times reporting that there is also interest from both Nike and Puma in supplying those competitions.
Sources told the outlet that UC3 and Relevent are open to bundling the three competitions together or keeping them apart.
Across the UCL, Europa League, and Conference League, there are a total of 531 matches per season.
UC3 and Relevent have previously demonstrated a willingness to shift away from long-term partners in key sponsorship categories.
In October, for example, it emerged that international beverage company Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) was in exclusive talks with UC3 to replace Heineken as the beer sponsor of UEFA’s club competitions.
Heineken had been a sponsor since 1994, with its last renewal with UEFA, in September 2023, worth around $128 million per year.
AB InBev entered an exclusive negotiation period with UEFA, covering the 2027-33 commercial cycle, and has reportedly offered as much as $230 million per year.
Now, UC3 and Relevent are seeking to maximise revenue from the match ball category and potentially create a market for the opportunity, which could lead to a bidding war between the world’s largest sportswear brands.
Notably, Puma has become the dominant match ball supplier across Europe’s major leagues in recent years.
This season, the brand ended Nike’s 25-year run as the English Premier League’s ball supplier. It also replaced Nike in Italy’s Serie A from the start of the 2022-23 campaign and has also been La Liga’s official ball supplier since 2019-20.
As well as the first global sponsorship sales process for the next UEFA club competitions cycle, with the bidding process launched in early October, UC3 and Relevent also recently went to market for broadcast rights in 19 markets across Europe, Central America, and South America.
These include major territories such as Brazil, Canada, Belgium, and Portugal, with contracts on offer for the next four-season cycle – beginning in 2027-28.
Last week, Japanese satellite TV network Wowow retained exclusive broadcast rights to the UEFA men’s club competitions and added the UEFA Women's Champions League to its offering for the first time.
In terms of other recent deals, Ziggo Sport, the Dutch broadcaster, is set to retain its rights in the Netherlands for the next cycle after becoming the governing body's preferred bidder. It was unveiled earlier this month that Ziggo has entered into an exclusive negotiation period with UC3.
In Mexico, meanwhile, Telecoms giant America Movil has added the Europa League and Conference League to its UCL deal in Mexico and Central America.
Broadcast rights to the UEFA competitions were already allocated in the 'Big Five' European markets of the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France, late last year.
Globally, UEFA is attempting to secure a 10% increase on the existing value of the rights.
The current rights, for the three-year cycle which got underway in 2024 and runs through 2026-27, are worth about $3.8 billion per year, with UCL clubs earning almost 75% of the revenue from UEFA’s rights sales.
