The Uruguayan Football Federation (AUF) is inviting bids for broadcast rights to the national team’s six friendly matches to be played between September and November.
The national association has invited cable, satellite or over-the-air subscription broadcasters in Uruguay to lodge their offers for the six-game package.
Rights are non-exclusive as the AUF specified in its invitation to tender document that it will be also be able to strike deals with streaming platforms.
The six friendly games in question include just one home match, namely the home game against Peru on October 11. Uruguay will face away games in Costa Rica (September 6), USA (September 10), Peru (October 16) and Hungary (November 15), while the opponents for a match on November 9 have yet to be named.
The AUF believes the package, which also includes pitchside advertising rights at the friendly games and media rights to the final stages of Uruguay’s National Club Cup, to be worth around $1m (€902,000).
It has been reported in Uruguary that the AUF could opt to showcase the games on AUF TV, its own television channel, should bids from broadcasters be deemed insufficient.
Interested broadcasters must submit their offers by September 3 at the latest.
The AUF will also soon receive offers for international rights to Uruguay’s games for the 2022 World Cup. An invitation to tender covering nine home qualifying fixtures along with the home leg of a potential play-off match was issued earlier this month.
The Tenfield agency held domestic and international media rights to Uruguay’s home qualifying matches for the 2018 World Cup in a deal worth around $18m. The agency assumed the international rights from Full Play, the previous rights owner, in 2015.
In the absence of a wider agency agreement, the AUF has been selling rights to its home friendly games on a match-by-match basis.
The AUF’s broadcast rights committee last month decided to run the sale of domestic and international broadcast rights to the 2022 World Cup qualifying matches in two stages, with the sale of domestic rights to follow at a later date.
Full details of the AUF’s ITT document for the six-game friendly package can be found here.