Watching the Champions League is often the highlight of the week for many fans, but in the United States it’s going to be moving to a new channel. Long at the core of Fox Sports’ programming, the recent bidding process for the next broadcasting contract came up with a surprise winner: Turner Sports.
Turner Sports win bid for Champions League TV rights in United States
The Champions League will move to Turner Broadcasting System channels in 2018, with Univision picking up Spanish coverage.
Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images
Turner Sports is the division of Turner Broadcasting Systems that organizes and directs sports programming on their networks, including TNT, TBS, and TruTV, as well as directing NBA TV on behalf of the NBA. They bid a reported $60 million to win the rights between 2018 and 2021. This will end an almost 10-year run of the Champions League for Fox, who have held the rights since 2009.
Where Turner Sports will be putting the matches is as of yet unknown — an official announcement from the network isn’t expected until sometime in the next two weeks — but the more interesting question to ask is what it means for Fox’s coverage of the sport in general. They didn’t even bid on the Spanish rights that they’ve split with ESPN in recent years, rights that were won by Univision, and without a cornerstone like the Champions League in their pocket, we could see significant changes in Fox’s soccer coverage moving forward.
Regardless, there’s a major change coming in how the Champions League is going to be enjoyed in the United States, and it’s going to be interesting to see how it all plays out.
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