A more detailed version of this article – containing individual deal values and exclusive market intelligence – is available only to SportBusiness Media subscribers and can be read here.
The Uefa Champions League now generates more than €2.6bn ($2.7bn) per season in media rights revenues, with Europa League and Europa Conference League media rights taking the combined total past €3bn per season, a record amount for the competitions.
Uefa’s latest accounts show that Champions League and Super Cup media rights produced revenues of €2.64bn in 2021-22, the first season of the governing body’s current commercial cycle, which runs until the end of 2023-24. Europa League and Europa Conference League media rights added a further €398.8m in 2021-22.
The combined total for 2021-22 – €3.04bn – is an 11.7-per-cent increase on the pre-pandemic high of €2.72bn in 2018-19.
In the subsequent two seasons the combined total decreased to €2.32bn for 2019-20, when the number of Champions League and Europa League matches were reduced as a result of the pandemic, and €2.7bn for 2020-21.
In addition to the gradual easing of pandemic restrictions, Uefa’s media rights income has been boosted by the introduction of the third-tier Europa Conference League, which took place for the first time in 2021-22. In its current format, the competition provides an additional 141 regular-stage matches per season.
As a result of the increasing revenues, Uefa is on course to generate more than €9bn from its men’s club competition media rights across the 2021-24 cycle. This would be an increase of at least 16 per cent on the €7.73bn generated during the 2018-19 to 2020-21 cycle and at least 50 per cent on the €6.02bn generated from 2015-16 to 2017-18.
Regional split
SportBusiness Media data reveals that Europe accounts for around 80 per cent of the competitions’ media rights revenues in the current cycle. In the 2015-18 and 2018-21 cycles, the region was responsible for producing around 75 per cent of the media rights revenues.
After Europe, the regions that generate the most revenue in the current cycle are the Americas (around 8.5 per cent) and the Middle East and North Africa (around 6 per cent).
The next biggest source of media rights revenues is sub-Saharan Africa (around 4 per cent).
In all three cycles, the global rights were sold by the Team Marketing agency, which has distributed commercial rights to Uefa club competitions since 1992. For the 2024-25 to 2026-27 cycle, Team is selling the rights in all territories outside the US.
In the US, the rights are being distributed by Relevent Sports Group. The agency secured rights to the competitions in exchange for a minimum guarantee of $250m per season as part of a deal that broke Team’s exclusive grip on Uefa club competition rights.
Next cycle
Team and Relevent are in the process of selling media rights to Uefa club competitions for the 2024-27 cycle. Uefa is understood to be targeting an increase of 30 per cent in the value of the rights across the 2024-27 and 2027-30 cycles.
From 2024-25 onwards, the Champions League will expand from 125 matches per season to 189, with the total number of matches for which centralised media rights are sold – including the final qualifying round – increasing from 138 per season to 203.
The total number of Europa League and Europa Conference League matches for which centralised rights are sold is set to increase from 282 per season to 342.
Methodology
Unless stated otherwise, SportBusiness Media deal values are expressed in terms of the average annual fee across the full duration of the deal. For this reason, plus fluctuating currency rates and rebates, the total value of deals listed on SportBusiness Media Rights Tracker may differ from the per-season totals recorded in Uefa’s annual reports.
For deals where the fee is reported in US dollars, the following conversion rates have been used to produce the overall total and regional splits, as they are reflective of the average conversion rates over the course of the cycles:
2015-18: 1 USD = 0.87 EUR
2018-21: 1 USD = 0.87 EUR
2021-24: 1 USD = 0.91 EUR