Pay-TV broadcaster Sky Italia has acquired a new rights package from European soccer’s governing body UEFA covering its upcoming national team competitions.
The new deal will see Sky Italia air the final four matches of the UEFA Nations League European national teams tournament, as well as European qualifying games for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Go deeper with GlobalData
The deal comes after UEFA was unable to secure a domestic broadcaster to show matches during the Nations League 2024-25 season, with the games made available via the governing body’s platform UEFA.tv.
The Nations League finals tournament, featuring France, Germany, Spain, and Portugal, is being held in Germany from June 4 to 8.
Sky Italia will share the rights to the first semi-final between Germany and Portugal with free-to-air (FTA) broadcaster TV8, while the second semi-final between Spain and France will also be made available free through Sky's FTA channel Cielo.
The third-place final will also be shown on Cielo, but the final will only be available on Sky's pay-TV channels.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataThe new package includes coverage of the best matches from the group stage of the European qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, which starts on June 6 and runs until November. Qualifying play-offs are scheduled to take place in March 2026.
However, all games involving the Italian national team will be aired by Sky Italia on delay due to public broadcaster Rai holding exclusive rights to those games.
Sky will also air the international friendlies set up between March and June 2026 as national teams prepare for the World Cup being held across the US, Canada, and Mexico, with some matches available FTA on TV8 and Cielo.
As with the qualifiers, all Italian national team friendlies will be broadcast on delay by Sky, with Rai to provide live coverage of those games.
The new package adds to Sky Italia’s portfolio of UEFA rights, including exclusive rights to show 185 of the 203 Champions League top-tier European club competition games per season, until 2027.
In addition, it will cover all 342 second-tier Europa League and third-tier Conference League games.
Sky Italia also holds exclusive rights in the country to the top-tier English Premier League and Germany’s top-tier Bundesliga.
This latest rights acquisition also comes shortly after it was announced that Amazon Prime Video, the e-commerce giant’s OTT service, will offer matches from the UEFA Nations League on a pay-per-view (PPV) basis.
The matches are part of a wider deal for Amazon to offer all UEFA men's national team matches via PPV through June 2026, including select European qualifiers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and European international friendlies, as well as Nations League play-off games.
