It's go again ! UEFA, which oversees the European football championships, launches on Monday its call for tenders for the rights of the Champions League and Europa League starting in the season 2021 and for the next three years.
Canal +, beIN Sports, Altice, Mediapro and ... Amazon?
Currently, these rights are held by RMC Sport. But they stoke the appetites of just about everyone: Canal +, beIN Sports, Altice and the latest comer Mediapro, which will broadcast the championship of France Ligue 1 from next September. Even Amazon could invite herself to the party. The American company has indeed offered a few months ago part of the matches of Roland-Garros. Everything is possible.
This competition could lead to a new price explosion. Altice currently disburses 350 million euros to broadcast European competitions. Suffice to say that it is at least at this floor price that the next rights should be negotiated. Even more if one of the actors decides to want to crush the competition.
Two billion euros in total in 2000, six billion in 2018
As Le Figaro reminds us, broadcasting football has never been as expensive as it is now: in 2000, European football rights brought UEFA a little less than two billion euros from broadcasters. It was three times more at the end of last year. Six billion euros so, a hell of a lot of money.
Yet, many of them struggle to get the rights of the Champions League, given the level of investment, this operation is now less and less easy to make profitable.