The Fox Sports Media Group division of US network Fox has confirmed the acquisition of rights for European qualifying games for the Uefa Euro 2016 and 2018 Fifa World Cup national team tournaments.
As part of the deal, Fox Sports has sublicensed half of the matches to pay-television sports broadcaster ESPN.
Uefa, European football’s governing body, first announced the deal with Fox last week, with the broadcaster confirming the acquisition on Tuesday. Fox Sports and ESPN’s rights are exclusive in the United States and non-exclusive in the Caribbean.
Fox Sports and ESPN each have rights for more than 270 matches in total for both cycles. Each package includes 129 Euro 2016 qualifiers, 129 2018 World Cup qualifiers and 15 international friendly matches over the term spanning 2014 to 2018.
ESPN, which has rights to the Euro 2016 finals in France, plans to provide its coverage across ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, WatchESPN and ESPN3. ESPN has also acquired highlights rights for studio programmes including SportsCenter, ESPN’s new daily soccer program ESPN FC on TV and the company’s global soccer website ESPN FC. During the Euro 2016 qualification cycle, ESPN has first selection from each week’s pool of games leading into its tournament coverage.
Fox Sports holds the rights to the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia. Its qualifying matches for Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup will be broadcast on several Fox Sports platforms, including Fox Sports 1, America’s new national sports channel that launches on August 17. During the World Cup qualification cycle, Fox Sports has first selection from each week’s game pool leading up to its coverage of the finals tournament itself.
Fox Sports agreed its deal with the CAA Eleven agency. CAA Eleven is selling the global rights for the qualification matches under a deal agreed by the agency last year with Uefa.