Off the back of the recent 2026 Commonwealth Games, media giant Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has bolstered its athletics portfolio in Europe with pay-TV rights to the upcoming European Athletics Championships 2026.
WBD has partnered with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the continent-wide rightsholder for the event, to acquire the top-line pay-TV package.
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Hosted in Birmingham, UK, the European Athletics Championships will run from August 10 to 16, with all 50 events (24 men’s, 24 women’s and two mixed relays) aired live on WBD platforms.
The last-minute agreement will span 45 markets in Europe, effectively every territory on the continent, except Poland, Russia, and the Nordic Countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden).
Coverage of every event will be available on the HBO Max streaming service in each country. In terms of linear distribution, various disciplines will be broadcast in the UK and Ireland on the TNT Sports 3 linear channel, and across the rest of Europe on the Eurosport offering.
Speaking on the announcement, Trojan Paillot, the vice president for rights, syndication, and commercial development at TNT Sports parent WBD Sports Europe, commented: “Our proven track record of growing athletics audiences while delivering best-in-class viewing experiences across all platforms means we are the perfect partner to scale coverage of Birmingham 2026 to millions of fans across the continent.
“Hot on the heels of our successful coverage of every event at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games and less than two years to go until the Olympic Games LA2028, we are looking forward to capitalising on the momentum of athletics and are excited to broadcast one of the biggest events in the sport this summer.”
Free-to-air coverage of the event across Europe will be available via EBU member broadcasters as part of an agreement with the European Athletics governing body that will now run through 2031.
Overall, the EBU and European Athletics have been in partnership since 1981, with this latest deal thus taking the tie-up to 50 years in length.
This means in the host market, the UK, the BBC public-service network will take up broadcast rights, a part of its multi-year agreement that will run through 2027.
