UEFA Champions League broadcast rights in Australia were expected to move to Paramount+ until a late twist this week

Australian football fans‘ hopes for a consolidation of Australian and European broadcast rights appear remote, writes ADAM PEACOCK.

Adam Peacock

@adampeacock3

2 min read

May 3, 2023 - 12:16PM

The UEFA Champions League will stay with Stan Sport in Australia. Picture: Mustafa Yalcin/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Football

Don't miss out on the headlines from Football. Followed categories will be added to My News.

Australian broadcast rights for the UEFA Champions League are set to stay with Stan Sport in a surprise twist, staving off a bid from Paramount Plus/Network Ten.

Paramount/Ten were frontrunners for the rights to world football’s premier club competition, and Nine Entertainment, owners of Stan, presumed it would miss out. But sources have told CODE Sports that all changed mysteriously this week.

CODE Sports understands both parties put in initial bids and were asked to bid again. This is a normal part of the process when bids are close, sometimes within 10% of each other.

Stan came out on top following an extra round of bidding.

Paramount/Ten are two years into a five season deal to cover the A-Leagues competitions, though this season saw a restructure with games taken off Ten’s primary channel and aired on 10 Bold.

UEFA Champions League is set to stay with Stan for the foreseeable future. Picture: Harry Langer/DeFodi Images via Getty Images

The subscription side of the broadcast aired on Paramount has been beset by technical issues, with the basic functionality of pause and rewind on live games still not available.

TV insiders say it was a factor in Cricket Australia turning down a bid from Paramount/Ten for their rights earlier this year.

The Champions League deal hurts the local A Leagues competition in the sense that the rights for football are fragmented across four different subscription platforms, with fans forced to choose some, not all, of the options available.

The A-League’s highest ratings came around a decade ago when the local competition and English Premier League were on the same network in Fox Sports.

In an effort to replicate that model, Paramount/Ten bid for the English Premier League rights in 2021, only to miss out to incumbent Optus who re-signed for another six years.

Football fans in Australia will have to fork out for two streaming services for the A-League and UCL. Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images

Ten also missed out on free-to-air rights for the 2023 Women’s World Cup to be staged in Australia and New Zealand, with Optus sub-licensing a portion of games to the Seven Network including all Matildas games, plus the knockout stages.

Football Australia currently has a deal with Paramount/Ten for its rights to some Socceroos and Matildas games outside World Cups, the Australia Cup and any new second division competition which is due to start next year.

But those rights are up in 2024, with Football Australia CEO James Johnson recently signalling intention to go to market straight after the 2023 women’s World Cup.