European football’s governing body, Uefa, and Spain’s LaLiga have both made available their wealth of archive content on their own broadcast platforms amid the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.
Uefa will use its free-to-air OTT platform, Uefa.tv, to show content, including full re-runs of classic matches. Coverage will include both club and national competitions, including men’s and women’s Champions League, Europa League, and European Championship.
It also on Tuesday announced that the Uefa.tv app will now also be available on Apple TV, Android TV and Amazon Fire TV. Uefa.tv was launched in June 2019.
LaLiga has made archive matches from the last 20 years available on its LaLigaTV channel in the UK and Ireland. It will be airing daily matches at 1800 GMT. In addition, its UK and Ireland broadcast partner, pay-television broadcaster Premier Sports, will be airing the archive content across its channels, including its free-to-air channel FreeSports.
In the UK, Premier Sports is distributed on the Sky and Virgin Media platforms, with FreeSports, additionally carried on Freeview HD and Freesat. Premier Sports is distributed exclusive on Sky in Ireland. Sky also carries the LaLigaTV channel in Ireland.
The move from Uefa and LaLiga follows a host of broadcasters and rights-holders making archive and short-form content available in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Last week, world football’s governing body Fifa announced that it will open up its match archive across its multiple content channels.
The Fédération Internationale de Hockey (FIH) also on Tuesday removed geo-blocking restrictions on full re-runs of FIH Hockey Pro League matches played in 2019 and 2020.