Disney secures Champions League rights-DAZN loses a big game!

Disney secures Champions League rights-DAZN loses a big game!

Lissabon, Portugal - Disney has secured the transmission rights for the women Champions League and will show the games from the 2025-26 season at the Disney+ streaming service. According to darwesten.de comprises a term of five years to the 2029-30 season. This means that for DAZN, which over the past four years the media rights on the most important club competition for women.

Disney+ will broadcast all 75 games of the tournament in Europe from October. The deal expands with a new format of women Champions League, which introduces a league phase with 18 teams instead of 32. Walt Disney Company had previously secured rights for the Europa League and the Conference League in Sweden and Denmark, which underlines their ambitions in the sports sector.

extensive transmission plans

of the 75 games, ESPN, Disney's sports brand, will produce all live broadcasts for Disney+. There will be analyzes and comments in several languages. UC3, a joint venture between UEFA and the European Club Association, also cooperates with free radio partners to facilitate access to the games. In about 30 territories, a free transmission is made possible, which is allowed to be accessible to a wider audience up to one game per week, so nytimes.com .

In recent years, the market for sports rights has changed properly. DAZN initially offered the rights of women Champions League free of charge, but later postponed most games behind a paywall. This is now a thing of the past, since Disney now streams the games live under different conditions. In addition, Arsenal plays against Barcelona in the women's final of the women's final on Saturday, which should draw additional attention to the competition.

The change in the sports law market

The step of Disney comes at a time when the sports right market is subject to strong changes overall. According to Deutschlandfunk.de , the era of classic television is over and streaming services are increasingly taking on the role. Commercial providers like Sky are exposed to growing pressure from the streaming sector, while Disney and other platforms are trying to assert themselves in this competitive market.

Christian Seifert, former DFL boss, predicts that the willingness of media companies will decrease to pay high sums for sports rights. In contrast, women's football in 2022 experienced a breakthrough when 18 million viewers followed the European Championship final. These developments suggest that women's football is increasingly gaining visibility and market value and thus also being able to change rights at this competition in the next few years.