UK fans to pay for Champions League final for first time
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For the first time in 34 years, UK viewers will have to pay to watch the Champions League final as TNT Sports restricts access to subscribers of its HBO Max platform, breaking from previous free streams.
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For the first time in 34 years, UK viewers will have to pay to watch the Champions League final. TNT Sports, the rights holder, has opted not to make the European finals available for free, a departure from previous seasons where finals were streamed live for free.
The Champions League final will not be available to watch for free in the UK for the first time since the competition’s modern rebrand 34 years ago when Arsenal face Paris Saint-Germain in Budapest.
The rights holder, TNT Sports, is understood to have irritated Uefa by opting to charge fans to watch all three European finals despite English clubs chasing a clean sweep of titles.
Aston Villa will be the Premier League’s first challengers when they face Freiburg in the Europa League final on Wednesday. Crystal Palace meet Rayo Vallecano in the Conference League final seven days later, before Arsenal take on PSG the following Saturday. TNT Sports holds the UK live rights for all three competitions, but in a departure from previous seasons the Warner Bros Discovery-owned (WBD) channel has not made the finals available free of charge.
Since its predecessor, BT Sport, first acquired Uefa rights in the 2015-16 season the finals of the Champions League and Europa League have been streamed live for free, but TNT Sports has opted to restrict access to customers and subscribers to its streaming platform, HBO Max. New sign-ups over the next few days will be able to watch the finals, with the cheapest subscription to HBO Max available for £4.99, with TNT Sports costing £31.99 a month on most platforms.
Before BT Sport bought the rights, Champions League finals had been live on ITV, which had exclusive rights from the competition’s launch, as the rebranded European Cup, in 1992 until 2003, then joint rights with Sky Sports until 2015.
TNT Sport’s decision is understood to have been the source of some angst at Uefa, with sources saying it breaks the spirit of a contract that states “best endeavours” should be made to ensure the finals are available for free.
BT Sport/TNT Sport added the new Conference League to its rights five years ago, but will lose all three competitions from the 2027-28 season, having been outbid by Paramount for the Champions League and by Sky Sports for the other two in Uefa’s media rights auction last year.
BT streamed its European finals on YouTube and TNT Sports had made them available for free for customers who registered with its sister streaming service discovery+ since taking over the contract two years ago. TNT Sports is no longer available on discovery+, however, since WBD launched HBO Max in the UK in March.
Offene Fragen
- Will TNT Sports face significant backlash from fans?
- How will this decision impact future Uefa rights auctions?
- What is the exact contractual definition of 'best endeavours' in this context?
- Will other broadcasters follow this trend for major sporting events?
