Uefa is set to award broadcast rights to its club competitions in Austria for the 2021-22 to 2023-24 cycle, with a trio of broadcasters having submitted winning bids, SportBusiness understands.
It is thought that commercial free-to-air broadcaster ServusTV, public-service broadcaster ORF, and pay-television broadcaster Sky Deutschland each have picked up selected rights packages.
With regards to the Champions League, the Red Bull Media-owned ServusTV is understood to have acquired non-exclusive live rights to the first-pick Wednesday-evening match and the final, as well as highlights. Pay-television rights to all live matches are thought to have been awarded to Sky.
For the Europa League, ServusTV has been awarded non-exclusive live rights to the first-pick match, ORF the second-pick match, and Sky pay-television rights to all matches, including the newly-created Europa Conference League.
The impending award of rights means a return of Uefa club competition football to ORF, which held Champions League rights up until the 2017-18 season.
Rights to the Champions League in the current 2018-19 to 2020-21 cycle are held by Sky and streaming service DAZN. Sky initially acquired exclusive rights, but subsequently sublicensed a significant portion to DAZN.
DAZN currently holds pay-television rights to the Europa League in the same 2018-21 cycle, whilst ProSiebenSat.1-owned commercial broadcaster Puls 4 – holds free-to-air rights to one fixture per match-week and highlights.
Uefa, through its exclusive club competition sales agent Team Marketing, launched the latest tender for rights in the 2021-24 cycle in Austria on October 30, with a bid deadline of December 3.
SportBusiness understands there was two rounds of bidding, with select packages of rights awarded in the first and second round. All contract are yet to be signed.