Portuguese pay-TV broadcaster Sport TV will return as a partner of the UEFA Champions League pan-European soccer competition next season.
This comes with Sport TV having last covered the top-tier competition organized by European soccer’s governing body UEFA in 2018.
It has been announced by Sport TV that from 2024-25 through 2026-27 it will broadcast a package of the top-tier games from the UCL, in which three Portuguese sides (Benfica, Braga, and Porto) are competing in this campaign’s group stages.
The network will also cover games from the second-tier Europa League and third-tier Europa Conference League (which will change its name next season).
However, global streaming platform DAZN will remain as the premier UCL broadcaster in Portugal, having snapped up the majority rights to the 2024-27 cycle in that country through its acquisition of previous rights-holder Eleven in February, and its subsequent Portuguese launch in July.
One game per matchday, meanwhile, is currently carried live by free-to-air (FTA) broadcaster TVI.
In total, DAZN will cover 489 games per season exclusively across the aforementioned three competitions in Portugal.
Sport TV last covered UCL matches in the 2017-18 season, with the 2018-21 rights cycle then seeing games awarded to Eleven, which subsequently sub-licensed some to TVI.
UEFA launched the tender for the next cycle of club competition media rights in Portugal at the end of last month, with a bid submission deadline of October 16.
The sales are being handled by Team Marketing, UEFA’s partner agency for media and commercial rights sales across its club competitions, with a tender process in Belgium having gone live at the same time as in Portugal.
At that point, they were the first European tender processes for the next rights cycle to go live since early June when UEFA opened one in Ireland.
Contracts have already been signed across the continent in major markets such as the UK, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland.
Outside of Europe, meanwhile, deals have been agreed in the US and Australia.
From the 2024-25 season, the Champions League will take on a new single-league format, with the competition expanding from 32 to 36 teams, and incorporating 189 matches instead of the current 125.
