Commercial broadcaster RTL has extended its rights deal in Hungary covering European soccer's top-tier UEFA Champions League (UCL).
Through the deal, RTL now holds rights to every UCL game across the 2027-28 to 2030-31 period, in an extension of its tie-up covering the ongoing 2024-25 to 2026-27 cycle.
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UEFA and its rights sales agency, Relevent Football Partners, went to market in Hungary on March 30, with a deadline for bids of April 27 (a few weeks after a mass of tenders were issued simultaneously in other countries).
For the current cycle, RTL unveiled rights in June 2023, covering the UCL for the first time in its history. It replaced European media group AMC Networks International Central Europe and public service broadcaster MTVA in this capacity.
It had, however, already covered the lower-tier UEFA Europa League and Conference League competitions.
This season, high-profile Hungarian players to have played in the Champions League include Dominik Szoboszlai and Milos Kerkez, both of English heavyweights Liverpool.
In terms of Hungarian teams, however, no side made it past the playoffs to enter the 2025-26 group stage.
Elsewhere in terms of UCL deals, meanwhile, UEFA and Relevent awarded these rights in a wide range of markets – across Europe and the Americas – at the end of April.
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.
