The
UEFA Champions League (also known as the European Cup) is an annual club
soccer competition organized by the
Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by
top-division European clubs, deciding the competition winners. The competition attracts an extensive television audience, not just in Europe, but throughout the world. The final of the tournament has been, in recent years, the most-watched annual sporting event in the world.[1] The
final of the 2012–13 tournament had the competition's highest TV ratings to date, drawing approximately 360 million television viewers.[2]
Fox formerly aired the
UEFA Champions League and the
UEFA Europa League from 2009–2018.[3] Fox Sports provided live coverage through May 2015. Fox Sports Media Group had the first, second, and third picks of live matches for each night of the competition. Different live matches would air on
Fox Soccer,
Fox Soccer Plus,
Fox Deportes and regional
Fox Sports Net affiliates, with rebroadcasts on Fox Soccer.
DirecTV broadcasts all remaining matches during the playoff round and the group stage. Fox Soccer airs semifinal matches on Tuesdays and
FX did the same on Wednesdays.[4][5][6] The final is aired live free-to-air on
Fox.[7][8][9]
In 2017, Turner Sports announced that they had retained the rights to air all of the matches from the
UEFA Champions League live. The contract originally runs from 2018–2021. Turner later announced that they would air 4 matches per week on
TNT and the remainder of the matches on new streaming service
B/R Live.[10] All matches would be commentated through world feed.
In January 2016, Univision and TUDN, formerly known as Univision Deportes acquired Spanish-language rights to UEFA tournaments beginning in 2018, including
UEFA Euro 2020 and the
UEFA Nations League.[11] In 2017, Univision acquired Spanish-language rights to the
UEFA Champions League and
Europa League beginning in 2018-19.[12] All UEFA competition’s matches regularly air across
Univision,
UniMás,
Galavisión, and
TUDN.
Originally the
UEFA Champions League,[13]UEFA Europa League, and
UEFA Super Cup would've aired on CBS Sports networks starting from the 2021–22 seasons, but
Turner Sports opted out of the rest of its contract after airing most matches in the round of 16 for the 2019–20 season. In response, CBS extended its contract to start one and half (one for
UEFA Super Cup) seasons earlier beginning with the remaining round of 16 matches and the quarter finals in 2019–20 season. [14][15][16][17] On August 19, 2022, Amazon is outbid from rights holders, UEFA extended the deal with CBS until 2030.[18]