Nova, the Central European pay-TV broadcaster, has successfully retained rights to the top-tier UEFA Champions League (UCL) in the Czech Republic. This move completes Nova's set of broadcasting rights for all UEFA club competitions, making it a one-stop destination for sports fans and sports betting enthusiasts.
The broadcaster will cover up to six fixtures per match day from the expanded competition across the 2024-25 to 2026-27 cycle. This includes live games as well as highlights clips online and on social media platforms. The games will be broadcasted on Nova Sport channels 3 through 6.
Previously, for the cycle spanning from 2021-22 to 2023-24 which concluded with this season’s UCL final on June 1st, Nova shared these rights with Premier Sport.
Exclusive rights to all pan-European club competitions
This deal comes after Nova had already secured exclusive broadcasting rights to Europa League and Conference League matches for upcoming cycles. However, it will share these latter competition rights with AMC Networks and CT Sport public-service broadcaster.
Dusan Mendel, head of sport at TV Nova, said:
“The new Nova Sport 5 and 6 channels give us more space to broadcast a higher number of matches. Tuesday and Wednesday evenings will belong to the UEFA Champions League in an unprecedented quantity on our channels.
“We will broadcast up to six matches from each game day – two in the early evening and four in the evening simultaneously on Nova Sport 3 to 6.”
UEFA looking to close down other deals soon
UEFA launched a tender for media rights in September 2022 alongside its Team Marketing club competition partner agency for its men's club competition cycle running from 2024 through to '27 in Czech Republic. Despite no teams from that country progressing beyond preliminary stages during the last UCL season (with Sparta Prague and Slavia Prague both entering at qualifying stage), there is still considerable interest among local fans.
In terms of recent media rights deals for the next UCL cycle, Viaplay in Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland and Bulgaria’s bTV have also renewed their respective deals covering the trio of competitions. From 2024 onwards, the new season will comprise 203 UEFA Champions League matches per season across 19 match weeks as opposed to the current format of 17 match weeks and a total of 137 games.
The Conference League matches and Europa League matches will also increase in size next year with total matches increasing from 282 to 342.
Nova is not just limited to football broadcasting. It also covers motor racing’s top-tier Formula 1 in both Czech Republic and Slovakia through a deal struck late last year. This further cements Nova's position as a leading sports broadcaster in Central Europe.
