Mega TV, a prominent private television network in Greece, has successfully secured a package of free-to-air broadcast rights to the UEFA Champions League (UCL), European soccer's top-tier competition. This deal extends from the 2024-25 cycle through to the 2026-27 cycle.
This new three-year agreement allows Mega TV to continue broadcasting the top-pick game live every Wednesday from both group and knockout stages of this elite club competition. This follows on from their previous rights for the Champions League matches during the 2021-22 to 2023-24 cycle, which were obtained through a sub-licensing deal with Cosmote, a Greek pay-TV broadcaster.
Cosmote had acquired rights for these competitions (and other UEFA club competitions) for that three-year period. As part of their agreement with Team Marketing agency - responsible for handling UEFA’s commercial and broadcast rights sales - it was stipulated that one game each Wednesday during this three-year cycle would have to be shown on free-to-air TV.
Long bidding process
Team Marketing agency opened up bidding in Greece with a tender for the 2024-27 UEFA club rights back in October 2023, setting December 5 as the deadline for bids. In comparison, during the previous UCL competitions' rights cycle spanning from 2018-19 to 2020-21, ERT – another Greek public-service broadcaster – was allocated similar free-to-air broadcasting privileges.
In addition to live action coverage, Mega will also provide post-game highlights every Wednesday covering all games within each round of fixtures. The channel's new deal is set to kick off on August 14 with its broadcast of last season’s Champions League and Europa League winners Real Madrid and Atalanta, respectively, in the UEFA Super Cup match.
UEFA on brink of completing business before new season
In related news, the Megogo streaming service recently retained rights to UEFA's club competitions for the next three-year cycle in Ukraine. In other European markets, pay-TV broadcaster Nova acquired rights in the Czech Republic while Viaplay secured a deal for Sweden, Denmark and Iceland. bTV renewed its agreement in Bulgaria and Wowow extended its deal in Japan.
UEFA also initiated a tender process for media rights in New Zealand at the beginning of this month.
From 2024-25 onwards, Champions League will adopt a new single-league format. This change will see an expansion from 32 to 36 teams participating and an increase from 125 to 189 matches being played. Last season saw Piraeus-based Olympiakos win UEFA’s third-tier Europa Conference League title becoming the first Greek team to secure a European trophy.
