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CBS Picks Up UEFA Champions League, Europa League Rights Early

CBS and UEFA finished negotiations this week to carry this year's UCL event as well as the '20-21 tournamentuefa

CBS has picked up the rights to carry the UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League a couple of years early as the two sides inch closer to a deal. CBS and UEFA finished negotiations this week to carry this year's UCL event -- a single-elimination tournament in Portugal next month -- as well as the '20-21 tournament. UEFA has not negotiated with other media companies in the three weeks since Turner Sports opted out of its contract two years early. CBS All Access, CBS Sports Network and CBS will be the exclusive English-language homes for the events. Specific details on how much CBS will pay and where it will carry the games are scarce. Meanwhile, Turner opted out of its deal last month for a variety of reasons. This year's tournament suffered through a prolonged stoppage because of the pandemic. Turner also was already operating as a lame duck, given that CBS takes over in the fall of '21. Plus, Turner originally cut its UEFA deal in '17 as a way to build up its streaming service B/R Live. It has since folded B/R Live into the Bleacher Report app (John Ourand, SBJ Media).

ADDING FIREPOWER: ViacomCBS Chief Digital Officer Marc Debevoise said that the UEFA contract "adds 'tonnage' to the company's streaming effort just as it's trying to expand that service to be a more robust competitor with NBCUniversal's Peacock, Walt Disney's Hulu and other subscription-video outlets." VARIETY's Brian Steinberg wrote European soccer "will potentially bring new audiences to ViacomCBS, but it also brings some challenges." The games "can be difficult to monetize on TV, because the matches typically feature fewer in-game opportunities for commercials than American sports broadcasts" (VARIETY.com, 7/8).

CHALLENGING ENDEAVOR: The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Mullin & Robinson write U.S. television "hasn't always been a happy home for the Champions League." CBS will be the competition's "third broadcaster in five years, following challenging stints" by Fox Sports and Turner Sports. As both Fox Sports and Turner Sports discovered, the Champions League "can be a challenge to follow for American audiences, despite the glitz of the sport's giants duking it out over 10 months to become European champions" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 7/9).

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