European soccer’s UEFA club competitions will be broadcast free-to-air in Turkey in the next three-year cycle after public-service broadcaster TRT snapped up the rights.
TRT has secured an exclusive deal covering the top-tier UEFA Champions League (UCL), second-tier Europa League, and third-tier Europa Conference League (to be renamed the Conference League from 2024-25) for the 2024-27 cycle.
The agreement also includes rights to the new Champions League ‘opening tournament’, Uefa Youth League, and the new Europa Super Cup.
The deal was negotiated by Team Marketing, UEFA’s partner agency for media and commercial rights sales across its club competitions.
Team went to market in Turkey in late December and set a deadline of January 22 for bids to be submitted.
In the current 2021-22 to 2023-24 cycle, media rights to all three UEFA club competitions are held in Turkey by subscription streaming service Exxen and free-to-air television channel TV8.
BeIN Sports, the international pay-TV broadcaster that owns Digiturk, Turkey’s leading pay-TV operator, previously held UCL rights from 2018-19 to 2020-21, while Saran Media, the Turkish sports rights agency, had rights to the Europa League during that period.
As part of TRT's deal, all matches involving Turkish clubs will be shown on the linear TRT 1 and TRT Spor channels, while most games will be aired on the new Tabii digital platform.
One Turkish team, Galatasaray, featured in the group stages of this year's UCL.
The deal for the UEFA competitions concludes one of two major rights processes in the country after the Turkish Football Federation launched a tender earlier this month for domestic rights to its top two leagues for the next three-year cycle.
The tender for the top-tier Super Lig and second-tier First Lig covers the 2024-25 to 2026-27 seasons and interested parties have until February 14 to submit their bids.
BeIN Sports and Digiturk hold current rights to both leagues under a two-year partnership extension signed in June 2022 running from the 2022-23 season to the conclusion of 2023-24.
Last week, meanwhile, UEFA launched tenders for rights to its club competitions during the 2024-27 cycle in Romania, as well as 'in-ship and in-flight'.
