This is not good news for millions of fans and enthusiasts. Sky “closes the door” on the television rights to the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League: from next season onwards they will not be shared with other broadcasters: great football will only be on the Sky platform or on Now. The indiscretion is from Sun 24 Hours. None of the matches involving the Italian teams next season will therefore be free-to-air, not even on TV8. And much less on the Mediaset networks: until this year Canale 5 had a weekly free-to-air match.
What changes for great football on TV
The novelty compared to previous years is that there will be no sublicensing or agreements with other networks. Sky has paid (and a lot) for the rights for the next three years of continental competitions and will not make exceptions. For the past three years, however, the Italian Antitrust had imposed a three-year preventative block on Sky in the acquisition of exclusives for the web, following the purchase, which in fact never even happened, of the R2 technology platform used by the then Mediaset Premium for their broadcasts.
There are no official figures, it has never been known how much Sky put on the table in 2023 to secure the 2024-2027 TV rights to the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League. An outlay of more than 600 million was hypothesized. The Champions League that is about to begin will be in maxi format, going from 32 to 36 teams. Many more games, none clear. In 2024/25 there will be eight Italian teams competing in Europe: five in the Champions League (Inter; Milan; Juventus; Atalanta and Bologna); two in the Europa League (Roma and Lazio) and one in the Conference (Fiorentina).
Free-to-air only semi-finals and finals
Mediaset ends its three seasons (as per the rights acquired from UEFA) made up of one match per week free to air on Canale 5 and also a complete offer on Infinity. Sky will soon only have competition from Amazon which for its Prime Video has the best Champions League match on Wednesday. In fact, those who want to watch the best of the best in European football live will be increasingly “pushed” to subscribe to Sky, which will continue to have exclusivity for Italy, in the years to come, also for the English Premier League, Ligue1 French and German Bundesliga.
Anyone who wants to enjoy European football on TV without paying a euro will have to wait for the big spring matches: in fact, the finals and semi-finals of the Champions League and Europa League are obligatorily broadcast free-to-air, and will remain so, as foreseen by the Tusma (Consolidated Law of audiovisual media services). With the increasingly effective anti-piracy crackdown, it remains to be seen how many will be willing to shell out dozens and dozens of euros a month to watch the best footballers in Europe on the small screen.
