The US media and entertainment giant Paramount Skydance has won the auction for the rights to broadcast most Champions League matches in the UK from 2027 to 2031 in a major shake-up of the domestic rights market.
The Guardian has learned that Paramount, whose subsidiary company Paramount+ owns the rights for Champions League games in the US, made the largest bid in this week's auction and an announcement is due. Amazon Prime is poised to land the first pick of Tuesday matches in major European markets in the new streaming deal sold by Uefa.
Sources with knowledge of the tender process say Paramount's bid was considerably higher than the £1bn currently paid by TNT in what will be regarded as a successful auction for the Uefa-owned joint venture UC3, which runs the Champions League, and its new commercial rights distributor, Relevent Football Partners.
Paramount Skydance is led by David Ellison, whose father, Larry Ellison, co-founded Oracle and is an ally of Donald Trump. It was reported by Al Jazeera this week that Paramount was preparing a $71bn bid for Warner Bros Discovery, which owns TNT Sports. In the context of a potential takeover the future of TNT Sports is unclear.
Paramount's deal would give them every Champions League game live in the UK other than the first pick of Tuesday night matches, which was auctioned separately to the five major European markets collectively for the first time. Amazon Prime is understood to have won that tender and will have the first pick of Tuesday games in England, Germany, Italy, Spain and France from 2027.
Amazon was already the rights holder in those first three markets and will replace Movistar and Canal+ in Spain and France respectively. Amazon is understood to have beaten off competition from rival streamers, including Netflix and Disney+. Although it will have the first pick of fixtures there will be limits on how many times it can show each club.
The tender process in other European markets remains ongoing, with auctions in France, Spain and Italy understood to have gone to a second round of bidding, which are taking place on Thursday.
Paramount, in an indication of its determination to break into the European market, is also understood to have reached the second round of bidding in France, Spain and Italy. Its bids are a sign of increasing American interest in European football before next summer's World Cup.
Given the values of the winning bids accepted, Uefa is understood to be confident of securing a significant increase on the £2.9bn-a-year value of the TV rights in the current three-year cycle.
The Champions League auction was the first tender process run for Uefa by the US-owned agency Relevent Football Partners since it replaced the governing body's longstanding sales partner Team Marketing last year. UC3 and Relevent have introduced significant changes, including the pan-European streaming package and extending the rights cycle to four years.
The bumper deals will be regarded by Uefa as vindicating the remodelled Champions League, with its extended league stage and a single 36-team table.