In a move that has "shocked U.S. media companies," Turner Sports picked up the U.S. English-language media rights to the UEFA Champions League starting in fall '18, per multiple sources, according to John Ourand of SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. Turner, which has not carried football programming "of any kind" for at least 27 years, was a "surprise bidder and aggressively committed" more than $60M per year as part of a three-year deal that runs through the spring of '21, "largely taking over" a package that Fox Sports has held for nine years. Turner will be joined by Univision, which agreed to pay around $35M per year for the Spanish-language rights, giving UEFA "a haul" of close to $100M per year for the U.S. rights to the tournament. That is a "massive increase" for UEFA, which currently brings in around $50M per year for both English- and Spanish-language rights from Fox. The "biggest surprise, though, came from Turner," which last had football on its schedule with the 1990 World Cup. Turner outbid two networks -- Fox and NBC -- that have made "huge investments in the sport over the past decade" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 2/27 issue).