BT Sport beat ITV and Sky to seal £1.2bn Champions League TV rights deal
BT Sport will continue to broadcast exclusive coverage of the Champions League
BT Sport have secured exclusive TV rights to the Champions League until 2024 despite hot competition from other broadcasters.
Every game will be shown live across BT Sport platforms as well as regular highlights shows.
ITV and Sky both made sizeable offers for the tender, but BT Sport met UEFA's asking price of around £1.2bn to continue their grip on European football for several more years.
Reports suggest ITV had made a bid for non-exclusive rights, thought to relate to showing highlights of games on free-to-air TV, but that bid was unsuccessful.
Last season's all-English Champions League final between Liverpool and Tottenham was made available to non-subscribers by BT Sport, and brought in a UK audience of 11.3m on TV and digital platforms combined.
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Streaming giants DAZN were also reportedly keen on the rights, but were ultimately kept out of the race by BT, while ITV and Sky would have been more likely candidates had the current broadcaster chosen to pull out of the race to retain the rights.
Authors
Michael Potts is the Sport Editor for Radio Times, covering all of the biggest sporting events across the globe with previews, features, interviews and more. He has worked for Radio Times since 2019 and previously worked on the sport desk at Express.co.uk after starting his career writing features for What Culture. He achieved a first-class degree in Sports Journalism in 2014.