Football & Media

Sky and Amazon Prime Video get Champions League rights

Uefa's allocations also confirmed for the four-year period 2027-2031

by Andrea Biondi

2' min read

Translated by AI
Versione italiana

2' min read

Translated by AI
Versione italiana

Sky and Amazon hold on to European football. Again. And this time for longer than expected.

Also for the four-year period 2027-2031, the Champions League, Europa League and Conference will continue to have their home in Italy on Sky channels and on Now - the Comcast-controlled media company's Ott platform - for at least another six seasons in total counting the current one.

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Not three years, as in the previous model, but four. Uefa, which went ahead with the allocation of rights, consolidates the format for the Peninsula and Sky keeps the richest package, practically without a shake-up.

The perimeter does not change: 184 of the 203 seasonal matches of the new single-round Champions League, all 342 Europa and Conference League matches, plus the finals. A block of rights that translates into 526 matches per season. "We are truly proud to be Uefa's main partner and to be able to offer our subscribers the great matches of the European competitions on an exclusive basis until 2031," explained Sky CEO Andrea Duilio, emphasising how this move confirms "our commitment to making the House of Sport's sports offer unique.

Meanwhile, Amazon with its Prime Video - which started broadcasting the Uefa Champions League in Italy and Germany in 2021 - is not backing down either. On the contrary. As of the 2027-28 season, in addition to the 18 best Wednesday matches, the best Thursday match of the first day of the League Phase will also be broadcast exclusively by Prime Video in Italy and Germany. There will thus be 19 matches exclusively for Prime customers in each of the four seasons of the new agreement.

A strategy that starts with numbers: growing ratings for Prime video in all markets where the Champions League has landed on the platform. "This is an important moment for our service and fantastic news for Prime customers in Italy, the UK, Ireland and Germany: we are guaranteeing the biggest matches in European football until 2031," said Alex Green, Managing Director Prime Video Sport, International.

Just from the UK and Germany, meanwhile, comes another important piece of news, with Paramount Skydance joining the scene, although at the moment there has been no official announcement. Paramount, which merged with David Ellison's Skydance Media in August, had signed an agreement with Uefa in 2022 for a six-year partnership for the US TV rights to the Champions League. And certainly its entry on the scene, with its Paramount+ platform, marks a quantum leap for football audiovisual rights even if, as with Amazon, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that interest will also shift to the national leagues.

All this while Paramount Skydance is also looking forward to the challenge posed by the possible acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, like Comcast and Netflix (only interested in the TV part, however). The deadline for submitting non-binding offers expired yesterday.

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