9 Nov 2013

BT wins £897m Champions League rights deal

BT Sport wins a three-year deal to screen all Uefa Champions League games, paying £897m to take the rights from Sky and ITV.

The telecoms company won the tender process to all 350 games from both the Champions League and the standalone Uefa Europa League starting in 2015/16.

The deal represents the first time that a single UK broadcaster has won all of the rights.

Pay TV broadcaster BT Sport has also revealed that it will air a number of matches from the Champions League and Europa League free-to-air.

The deal will greatly benefit the BT Sport service, which includes a raft of English Premier League games as well as games from Gerrmany’s Bundesliga, France’s Ligue1 and Italy’s Serie A.

Gavin Patterson, BT chief executive, said: “I am thrilled that BT Sport will be the only place where fans can enjoy all the live action from the Uefa Champions League and Uefa Europa League. Both tournaments are world class and firm favourites with many. The live rights will give a major boost to BT Sport and give people yet another reason to take our terrific service.”

‘Ability to deliver premium coverage’

Guy-Laurent Epstein, Uefa Events marketing director, added: “Uefa’s is delighted to welcome newcomer BT Sport to the family of Uefa Champions League rights holders. Since its launch in the summer, BT Sport has been Uefa’s partner for the Uefa’s Europa League and has demonstrated its ability to deliver premium sports coverage.

“We look forward to working with BT Sport on both competitions in the 2015-18 rights cycle.”

In a statement, Sky said: “We bid with a clear view of what the rights are worth to us. It seems BT chose to pay far in excess of our valuation.

“There are many ways in which we can invest in our service for customers. We take a disciplined approach and there is always a level at which we will choose to focus on something else. If we thought it was worth more, we’d have paid more.

“Nothing changes until 2015 and we look forward to 18 more months of live Champions League on Sky Sports. We will now re-deploy resources and continue to bring customers the best choice of TV across our offering.”

Free to watch until 2015

An ITV spokesman said: “ITV is proud to have been the UK free to air broadcaster of the Champions League, since it launched in 1992, and of the Europa League, but we were not prepared to pay over the odds in the latest live rights round.

Viewers will be able to continue to watch both competitions free on ITV through to 2015 and we remain the home of live England football.”