Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) has continued its incursion into football broadcast rights as it is expected to join BT Group and the BBC in showing UEFA Champions League games from 2024.
The US retailer’s Amazon Video arm is reported to have secured live broadcast rights in the UK for the premier pan-European competition, while BT Group PLC (LSE:BT.A) lost exclusivity but will continue to show the most games and streaming competitor DAZN seemingly lost out again.
Amazon stumped up a reported £1.5bn over four seasons to get the first pick of Tuesday night games, amounting to 17 matches per season, as the Champions League moves to a new format with 36 teams and a total of 189 matches, up from 32 and 125 currently.
In total, Amazon could show 20 matches, similar to its present English Premier League rights package, which is its largest sports rights deal in the UK since it first broke into the Sky and BT oligopoly in 2018.
"Amazon is now establishing itself as a key provider of sports in the UK as it continues to steadily beef up its programming. This will help drive Prime subscriptions and sales even further with more live sport through the year," said analyst Paolo Pescatore at PP Foresight.
Meanwhile, the BBC is thought to have won a Champions League highlights package, which will be the first time the competition has been available to watch on terrestrial TV in close to a decade.
BT no longer exclusive holder
The BT Sport arm of BT Group PLC (LSE:BT.A) has retained the rights to show most matches, confirming on Friday that it will pay £305mln per season to show 533 of the 550 games available, including Europa and Europa Conference League games, totalling the same amount as the £1.2bn it shelled out at the last auction in 2015.
It was a "win for all parties", said Pescatore, though he added "this will not go down with fans if they’re forced to fork out more during these unprecedented times with the higher cost of living", with the BBC now offering an option to unsubscribe for those who are happy to only watch highlights.
After a deal was agreed to merge BT Sport into a new joint venture with Eurosport owner Warner Bros Discovery Inc (NASDAQ:WBD), BT said it would pay the rights costs, if it gets cleared in the probe by UK competition authorities as expected by the end of 2022, less a deposit of around £61mln the FTSE 100 company will pay this month.
BT said its financial outlook for the 2023 financial year remains unchanged and that following completion of the BT Sport joint venture, it expects group revenues to reduce by £0.5bn-£0.6bn per annum compared to the prior year but with no "material" impact on underlying earnings (EBITDA).
"While BT Sport loses exclusivity, it provides long-term certainty going into the JV with Discovery, providing fans with more games and for less money," said Pescatore, but more broadcasters showing matches means fragmentation of the market.
He added: "The biggest question mark is DAZN and whether any interest was shown.
"This will be a further blow to its own aspirations in the U.K. as some of these rights would have helped its precarious position. More so given the failed acquisition of BT Sport."
New format
Under the new Champions League format, there are expected to be five Premier League teams on a regular basis, due to English clubs having performed well in recent European tournaments.
In the redesigned competition, 36 teams will play in a single league format, with those finishing 1-8 progressing to the round of 16, with teams placed 9-24 contesting the additional knockout round.
The bottom 12 teams exiting the competition and no longer dropping down into the UEL and UECL respectively, "introducing more jeopardy and must-win knock out matches".
** UPDATE: adds BT confirmation of details. **