Sky and ITV bid to keep Champions League rights as deadline looms

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 08-Apr-05, 11:00

LONDON - BSkyB and ITV face possible challenges from the BBC and Channel 4 as they bid to hold on to the television rights to Uefa Champions League football matches with the deadline for rights to the 2006-2009 games expiring today.

Three packages of live games are up for grabs. One offers the pick of matches played on Tuesday and another matches played on Wednesday. The third package allots the games not chosen by the holders of the other packages.

Industry watchers believe one possible outcome is BSkyB securing all the rights, but it is more likely that ITV and BSkyB will both be successful.

Whether the BBC can make an attractive bid, given that it can not promote Uefa's sponsors is in doubt, according to TV insiders, meaning it might have to submit a higher bid to succeed.

For Uefa, the problem with the BBC is that the public service broadcaster can not support match sponsors and so could potentially devalue the package Uefa could offer any sponsors.

Uefa is reported to have secured over £80m in 2002 when it sold the 2003-2006 TV rights and BSkyB muscled in on ITV's previous exclusive deal.

ITV currently shows Tuesday night games on its terrestrial and digital channels, and Sky shows Wednesday night games, allowing fans to pick between up to four simultaneous games through its interactive service.

Uefa has handed responsibility for the negotiations to its partner Team Marketing. Team executives close to the negotiations were unavailable for comment today.

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