In a sign of the sport's growing popularity with Americans, Paramount Global renewed its US media rights to the games in a deal worth more than a billion dollars over six years.
The annual tournament featuring Europe's top football teams will be broadcasted by the owner of the CBS network and Paramount+ streaming service. According to people familiar with the matter, Paramount will pay about $250 million per year, up from about $100 million per year.
The Union of European Football Associations had been seeking $2 billion over six years for the English- and Spanish-language rights, but decided to hold off on selling Spanish rights because the streaming market for that audience is still in its early days. The Spanish-language rights of Televisa Univision were owned by the company. Telemundo is going to start a content hub on Peacock, a streaming service owned by its parent company.
The cost of sports rights in the US has gone up in recent years and the new deal with Paramount shows that. It was almost triple the cost of the previous deal.
It was the largest US audience for a final game in English-language television in the history of the game.
The European soccer governing body had talks with NBCUniversal, Disney, Amazon.com, Apple, Fox and Warner Bros. about the rights to the European soccer league. The two highest bids were made by Paramount and Amazon.
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