Pay-television broadcaster Sport TV has acquired rights in Portugal to all matches from the 2020 Uefa European Championship and will now seek to find a free-to-air partner for Portugal national team matches.
Chief executive officer at Sport TV, Nuno Ferreira Pires has told Portuguese news agency Lusa that Sport TV has acquired both free-to-air and pay-television coverage for the first time in Sport TV’s history.
Sport TV will now work to make sure that all possible households will have access to Portuguese national-team matches from the Euro 2020 competition. Uefa want the widest possible exposure for these matches and Sport TV will prioritise finding a free-to-air partner. However, Pires claims that this is not a foregone conclusion and Sport TV is open to using its Sport TV+ channel, which reaches more than 92 per cent of households.
Rights for Euro 2016 were held by public-service broadcaster RTP in Portugal via its membership of the EBU, which acquired rights across 26 countries in Europe. RTP currently hold rights to first- and second-party Uefa European Qualifier and Nations League rights from 2018-19 to 2021-22. Sport TV acquired third-party rights over the same period.
Rights were sold by the CAA Eleven agency, Uefa’s sales agent for its national-team matches.