The Team Marketing agency has initiated the sales process for broadcast rights in the Nordic countries to Uefa club competitions across the 2021-22 to 2023-24 cycle, SportBusiness understands.
Uefa’s appointed sales agency for club competitions has started two concurrent sales processes in the region. One covers the Uefa Champions League, Uefa Super Cup and Uefa Youth League, with the other covering the Europa League and new third-tier Europa Conference League.
Interested broadcasters must lodge their bids by 10am (CET) on March 31.
The launch of the sales process follows the Premier League’s stunning €2.3bn ($2.5bn) six-year rights deal in the Nordic region with Nordic Entertainment (Nent) Group. The broadcaster, which also recently extended its rights to Germany’s Bundesliga until 2024-25, holds Champions League rights in Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
TV2, the Norwegian commercial broadcaster, also holds Champions League rights in Norway through a sublicensing deal with Nent, and also holds rights to the Europa League.
Europa League rights during the current cycle (2018-19 to 2020-21) are held by Discovery in Denmark and Sweden, while commercial broadcaster MTV3 is the incumbent Champions League and Europa League rights-holder in Finland.
Invitation to tender documents have been created for each market so that Team and Uefa can evaluate bids for each territory on their own merit.
SportBusiness understands that just three Champions League rights packages (A1, A2 and B) are being offered in Sweden.
Package ‘A1’ includes the 16 first-pick Tuesday-evening matches each season, plus Tuesday highlights and 33 magazine programmes (per season). Rights to 16 first-pick Wednesday-evening matches each season are included in package ‘A2’, along with rights to the Champions League final and the Super Cup, plus Wednesday highlights and 33 magazine programmes.
Meanwhile, package B includes a total of 104 live matches per season or, in other words, the Champions League matches not selected in packages A1 and A2. Delayed and archive rights, plus Tuesday and Wednesday highlights. The rights to the Uefa Youth League, are also part of this package.
Uefa and Team chose the US market as the first in which to go to market for the new cycle as the international sales process began five months ago. Rights processes were then initiated in the UK, France, Russia, Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
The sales process was also launched in Spain last month, as reported by SportBusiness. That launch means that the sales process has been initiated (or completed) in four of Europe’s ‘big five’ markets, with only Italy remaining.
Elsewhere, Team recently went to market with the Uefa club rights in the Balkan countries, and also Malta.
