ITV, Sky seal Uefa rights deal

UK commercial broadcaster ITV and pay-television operator Sky have acquired the latest package of football rights for the England national team offered by European governing body Uefa.

Under its agreement, ITV will show live and exclusive free-to-air coverage of all of England’s qualifying matches for Uefa’s 2020 European Championships and the Fifa World Cup in 2022.

ITV will also show exclusive coverage of England’s pre-tournament warm-up matches should the team qualify for each competition. ITV’s current deal for exclusive rights to qualifying matches runs until 2018.

Sky, meanwhile, has acquired exclusive live rights to show all home nations’ matches during the new Uefa Nations League tournament. The Nations League received the unanimous backing of all 54 Uefa member associations at a meeting of European football’s governing body in March 2014. The competition is designed to enhance the attractiveness of national team friendlies and will replace a number of windows set aside for such games.

Sky will also broadcast live coverage of every Euro 2020 and 2022 World Cup qualifier played by Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Highlights of England’s qualifying games for the two tournaments will be provided.

Sky broadcast every Euro 2016 qualifier featuring Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and has a similar agreement in place for the 2018 World Cup. Sky’s new agreement grants the broadcaster up to 900 live international games in total.

The agreements bring an end to a long-running process following the initial launch of a tender in November 2015. The CAA Eleven agency launched a tender in the UK for rights to the European Qualifiers for Euro 2020 and the 2022 World Cup, the 2018-19 and 2020-21 Nations League competitions and other international matches. The deadline for UK bids for the rights had been set at December 8, 2015.

UK newspaper the Daily Mail last week reported that the deals will be worth more than £45m (€53m/$57m) per year to the English Football Association, around twice the minimum guarantee agreed when Uefa started its centralised sales strategy in 2013.

The deals were reported in TV Sports Markets last January.