Paramount to show Champions League games in UK from 2027

Paris St-Germain won the Champions League last season

US media giant Paramount has won the rights to show Champions League matches in the UK for four years from 2027.

BBC Sport has been told the company will pay well in excess of the near-£1bn deal currently in place with TNT Sports.

Amazon Prime will continue to show a game every Tuesday in the UK from 2027 to 2031.

Paramount's deal comes after the joint UC3 initiative between European football's governing body Uefa, the European Club Association and commercial rights partner Relevent.

Paramount worked with Uefa on the elaborate films screened around the Champions League draw for the past two seasons.

Sources have suggested the deal could be seen as good news for the Premier League given it adds another big broadcasting name to the football rights market and should not lead to an overall reduction in the TV pot.

There has recently been speculation of a bid by Paramount for Warner Bros Discovery, which includes TNT in its portfolio.

Meanwhile, Sky has announced it has secured the exclusive rights to show every Europa League and Conference League match in the UK over four years from the 2027-28 season - 342 games each season.

Fans will need another subscription to watch football

Every time a new broadcaster enters the TV rights market it usually means one thing: supporters paying more to watch live football.

And this new deal fragments the landscape again, taking Champions League football away from a broadcaster which holds a portfolio of competitions.

At one stage supporters only needed a Sky subscription for their Premier League football, with ITV owning the Champions League.

But the days of free-to-air live television coverage of Europe's leading competition are a dim and distant memory.

ITV solely had the rights from the competition's launch in 1992 until 2003, and then jointly with Sky Sports through to 2015.

Setanta and ESPN had Premier League packages for six years from 2007 to 2013 - but the real game-changer came when BT Sport (now TNT Sports) entered the rights market.

It took live Premier League football in 2013, and two years later started showing Champions League football exclusively - ending live terrestrial coverage.

As of 2027, TNT Sports will lose the Champions League, but fans would still need it for the Saturday lunchtime Premier League package and the FA Cup.

A TV licence costing £14.54 a month is needed to watch live television. A Sky subscription with Sports is £50. Add on TNT Sports for European football, the Premier League and the FA Cup, and that's another £30.99.

Want the Tuesday night Champions League action on Amazon Prime? That's another £8.99, but you do get all the other services that come with it.

That's £89.98, and we've not even factored in the cost of Premier Sports or Disney+ who have La Liga and the Women's Champions League.

From 2027, it is set to get even more expensive. At least the Sky subscription will be better value with exclusive rights to the Europa League and the Conference League.

But with Netflix and DAZN linked with future bids for rights, the picture could fragment even further.

Uefa rolls the dice and wins big

When the Champions League package was last put out to tender, BT Sport paid £917m for its package which was a 23% drop on the agreement three years earlier.

Uefa did have the additional Amazon Prime partnership, but broadcasting revenues were not growing as much as Uefa and the European Football Clubs would like.

How could they take advantage of the key markets and get more money in? They turned to UC3 and Relevent Football Partners to run the tender process for them.

The result? The bumper new deal with Paramount which is worth well in excess of £1bn.

With streaming platforms becoming increasingly prominent a new strategy was created to target "new global, digital-first platforms" with a simultaneous tender across France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

In landing the deal with Paramount, and extending the deal with Amazon for first pick games on a Tuesday night, the Champions League has now completely moved away from traditional rights partners.

It been the direction of travel for a while, with most of this month's crucial World Cup qualifiers on Amazon pay-per-view in the UK.

But streaming does rely on supporters having a strong and reliable internet connection, and has a delay compared to traditional broadcasters.

What is Paramount+ and how do fans access it?

In the UK, Paramount has a streaming service called Paramount+ which is best known for showing movies and exclusive series.

Paramount owns the Champions League in the United States and shows it on its CBS channel, but this is the first time it has made a foray into UK sport.

But how can fans access Paramount+?

We do not know yet whether games will be shown on Paramount+, or if Champions League matches will bundle into an existing subscription model, or if a specific football subscription will be launched.

It is also to be determined if it will be part of existing partner deals, as Sky Cinema subscribers get a basic package (with ads) for free.

For anyone else Paramount+ costs £4.99 a month. Subscribers can pay £7.99 or £10.99 for enhanced packages.

Paramount+ can be signed up to directly on its website, through Sky if you don't have the Sky Cinema subscription and via Amazon Prime Video.

It can be watched through a dedicated app on Sky or through regular streaming methods.

Paramount does also own Channel 5 so there would at least be the potential for matches to appear on terrestrial television.

The Champions League final has to be made available free to air, and putting it on Channel 5 could be a simple solution to that.