Champions/Europa League Rights

[Brekkie]

BBC Highlights confirmed: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61995080

States "from 22:00" on the Wednesday but suspect it'll air at 10.35pm, but sounds like it includes website clips too. Still no official announcement from Amazon that I can see.

[TMD_24]

Here's an Amazon tweet but no press release yet.. 

https://twitter.com/primevideosport/stat...v-oIUVmm0w

[Jon]

Although having a top pick is important, in a way you’d think having multiple matches would fit the Prime platform better than it does BT. You’d think BT could have let some of the lower level fixtures that don’t drive subscriptions go, even if it’s only for a tiny bit more money and arguably that kind of content suits the Prime model and platform more than it does BT.

[Brekkie]

I am guessing UEFA sold three packages though - one first pick match, everything else and then highlights. BT clearly would have prioritised the "everything else" package as going from everything to just the one match, even if first pick, is a trickier sell than going from everything to not quite everything but still more than before. It's like whenever Sky lose a bit more of the Premier League rights they still usually come away with more matches than before.

[TIGHazard]

BBC Highlights confirmed: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61995080

States "from 22:00" on the Wednesday but suspect it'll air at 10.35pm, but sounds like it includes website clips too.  Still no official announcement from Amazon that I can see.

[font=Verdana, arial, sans-serif]Highlights will be shown from 22:00 on the Wednesday of match weeks on BBC TV, BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app, with clips for online and social media also available.[/font]

[font=Verdana, arial, sans-serif]The three-year deal includes the final, with highlights rights to be confirmed.[/font]

[font=Verdana, arial, sans-serif]Am I misunderstanding this, or does this mean what I think it means?[/font]

[font=Verdana, arial, sans-serif](Edit: not sure how I got this font thing showing, it wasn't copying from the article into here so just pasted it from word...)[/font]

[Brekkie]

Will be interesting to see if they use the "Match of the Day" brand as I suspect they'll have to use the Champions League music and logo. I wouldn't be hugely surprised if we saw Gabby hosting the live match for Amazon on the Tuesday and then the highlights for the BBC on the Wednesday.

[CentralAlpha2]

I'm just wondering how the BBC are gonna get around the advertisements UEFA loves to have introducing and ending their shows considering, well, public service broadcaster.

[willyninetyfour]

I'm just wondering how the BBC are gonna get around the advertisements UEFA loves to have introducing and ending their shows considering, well, public service broadcaster.

I thought this would be a problem as well, but it seems they must have found a compromise, whether that's the ad-free version they use on FIFA at the moment, or something else.

[Rdd]

Conventional wisdom was that the BBC would have to put in some sort of higher bid to compensate UEFA for not airing the sponsorship. Not sure how true that ever was and it clearly hasn’t stopped the BBC airing the Euros and I think in the distant past they had either the old Cup Winners Cup or UEFA Cup at some point?

[Brekkie]

I suspect there may be some acceptance from sponsors that a BBC highlights show will raise the profile of the event, and hence what they lose in sponsorship here (which is nothing considering there are currently no FTA highlights) they gain for greater exposure for live coverage.

Ultimately the Euros are run on basically the same model and have aired sponsor free for decades without problem on the BBC.

[Brekkie]

A bit more info on the finances which suggest BT are paying about £300m less, but overall the rights bringing in £300m more, suggesting between them Amazon and the BBC are contributing £600m, the vast majority you'd expect to be coming from Amazon.

Really hoping the BBC haven't paid too much because as much as there is PSB value to giving the CL a free to air outlet that benefits UEFA more than the BBC and I wouldn't want to see more rights lost elsewhere to fund even more football.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/202...e-football

[Newshound47]

I wonder if the BBC are thinking an Ofcom update to the Protected list might be adding CL highlights to the B list.

[Jon]

I wonder if the BBC are thinking an Ofcom update to the Protected list might be adding CL highlights to the B list.

I don’t get how that’s relevant. Because if they were thinking that (with no real reason to), it would just mean they’d could probably have waited and picked them up less.

I wonder if Channel 4 was interested.

[Steve Williams]

Really hoping the BBC haven't paid too much because as much as there is PSB value to giving the CL a free to air outlet that benefits UEFA more than the BBC and I wouldn't want to see more rights lost elsewhere to fund even more football.

I think it's vitally important the Beeb has a strong football offering, because it's the most important sport by miles. They now have the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup, I know the first two are highlights only, but that means they'll have almost every significant match for the big clubs, and lots and lots of content pretty much every week of the season. Plus the tournaments and top class women's football too. A good bit of business for the Beeb, I don't think it will have cost loads as well.

It's important to have a breadth of sport, and as the current period is showing, they have that. But it's just as important to have a big football offering, it is the biggest sport by miles and provides so much content that in terms of cost per hour it'll be pretty good value I think.

[Brekkie]

A bit of push back from the EFL on the BBC paying £20m for these but not bidding for their own £500k a year rights.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba...-deal.html