Germany: Perform and Sky acquire TV rights to the 2018-2021 Champions League

Sky Deutschland has acquired the broadcast rights from UEFA to the UEFA Champions League for the 2018-2021 period, according to the German pay-TV group on 13/06/2017. Perform, a British group specialised in the production and distribution of sports content on digital platforms, has acquired a sub-license from Sky for a part of the matches it will broadcast on its sports OTT platform DAZN.

The Champions League will therefore no longer be broadcast free-to-air in Germany from the 2018-19 season. Perform and Sky Deutschland could pay €600m for the 2018-2021 Champions League TV rights in Germany, according to the US economic website Bloomberg on 19/05/2017. This €600m would represent a 66.7% increase compared to the previous cycle, in which Sky Deutschland may pay about €70m annually, according to the German press, to broadcast 146 matches per season, including 128 exclusively. The German public TV group ZDF may pay about €50m per year for the best fixture of each round of the competition during the 2015-2018 cycle.

The TV rights to the European cups for the 2018-2021 cycle increased…