It hailed its capture of the Champions League as “the real game-changer” for BT Sport, but there are "shocking viewing figures from the first season" of its £897M ($1.3B) deal, according to Ben Rumsby of the London TELEGRAPH. U.K. TV ratings for the Champions League have "nosedived since it moved from ITV and Sky Sports," with the playoff round and group stages attracting a fraction of the audience -- including those games made available free-to-air. While a "significant drop-off was inevitable," the scale of it has provoked a UEFA "rethink about how the competition rights will be sold at the next auction this year." A key element of BT’s "triumphant bid" for the Champions League and Europa League two-and-a-half-years ago was its "pledge to show some matches -- at least 12 in the former competition -- free-to-air to reach the widest possible audience." But its BT Showcase channel has "proven a complete flop," attracting an average peak audience of less than 200,000 for its Champions League coverage, compared to the average peak of 4.4 million who watched the playoff round and group stages on ITV last year. Focusing on matches involving English clubs -- which attract the biggest ratings -- "the average peak audience for BT Showcase rises only slightly above 200,000, with even the network’s subscription stations drawing more eyeballs." This "runs counter to the natural order in which ratings for free-to-air sport dwarf those of equivalent programming on pay-TV." While UEFA "is still content with a deal" that more than doubled its U.K. broadcast income, it will "insist upon changes to the existing model when it sells the rights" to the '18-21 seasons. Whether that is "demanding a better free-to-air offering or taking the entire competition behind a paywall remains to be seen." Sponsors would "certainly be unhappy" with the status quo, according to Steve Martin of M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment. He said, "The U.K. market is a massive market commercially and if one of your markets for the top five -- England, Spain, Germany, France, Italy -- is playing out to audiences as low as that, you're going to question the value and you're going to go straight to UEFA" (TELEGRAPH, 2/10).
