LONDON: UK commercial broadcaster ITV is reportedly wanting to bid to bring the UEFA Champions League back to terrestrial TV when the auction for broadcast rights to European club football’s elite competition begins.

Governing body UEFA issued the tender for its club competition rights from 2021 to 2024 in the UK on 7th October, and both ITV and Sky are reportedly keen to challenge the current broadcast partner, BT Sport. Bids are due to Team Marketing, the agency handling the rights auction process, on 11th November.

Without a free-to-air presence in the UK, UEFA has had to accept much lower television exposure in the UK for its flagship club competition. However, BT, which paid UK£1.18 billion over three years for the 2018 to 2021 rights cycle, has endeavoured to secure reach with increased efforts on social media.

The tender document has split the rights up into several different packages, with one apparently carved out just to show the Champions League final, although that game has to be made available free-to-air as it is one of the UK government’s listed events.

It is thought that ITV would have to be a junior partner in any broadcast deal, as it was previously, with a pay-TV broadcaster gaining access to all of the match rights.

The Premier League’s 7.5 per cent decline in domestic TV rights fees in its last auction followed a truce between BT and Sky regarding distribution of their channels on each other’s platforms and suggests UEFA may struggle to match the windfall it earned in the 2017 auction.

BT CEO Philip Jansen, who was appointed to the role earlier this year, confirmed back in May that the company would look to keep hold of its exclusive Champions League rights.

“We’ll be very disciplined when we bid for the UEFA Champions League rights, which is the next one that is coming up,” Jansen told investors.

Jansen added that sport had played a “key role” for BT, but said that the company “are not going to go into more content at all”, and will not be looking to expand its sports coverage in the near-future.

For UEFA’s other club competitions, the tender document bundles together the rights for its new third-tier tournament, the Europa Conference League, with the Europa League.

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