European soccer’s governing body UEFA has opened the media rights tender process for its top-tier club competitions in the 2024-27 cycle in Canada.
Rights are on the market for the 2024-25, 2025-26, and 2026-27 seasons of the top-tier UEFA Champions League (UCL), second-tier Europa League, and third-tier Europa Conference League (to be renamed the Conference League from next season).
The sales are being handled by Team Marketing, UEFA’s partner agency for media and commercial rights sales across its club competitions. All inquiries should, therefore, be directed to info@team.ch.
Team is overseeing two sales processes in the market. The UCL rights are being sold with a new Champions League ‘opening tournament’ and the UEFA Youth League, while the Europa League, Conference League, and new Europa Super Cup rights are being sold separately.
The tender went live on October 17 with a deadline for submission of bids of 5pm (CET) on November 21.
Rights to all UEFA club competitions in the current cycle are held exclusively in Canada by global streaming service DAZN.
UEFA has already concluded deals in the US, with major broadcast network Paramount Global retaining English-language rights to the UCL through a six-year deal worth $1.5 billion, and media giant TelevisaUnivision renewing its Spanish-language rights.
The continental governing body recently launched a tender process in Belgium and Portugal, with bid deadlines of October 16 and October 26, respectively.
These are the first European tender processes for the next rights cycle to go live since early June when UEFA opened one in the Republic of Ireland.
Contracts have already been signed across the continent in major markets such as the UK, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland.
The last completed deal was a tie-up between UEFA and RTL Hungary.
Meanwhile, Australia is among the markets where a deal has been agreed outside of Europe.
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.
