NYON, Switzerland (AP) — The Women’s Champions League in European soccer will go mostly behind a paywall for the next five seasons on Disney+ in a deal announced by UEFA’s joint venture with top clubs on Friday.
The final on Saturday between defending champion Barcelona and Arsenal in Lisbon completes a four-year broadcast deal where fans could watch games for free on streaming service DAZN and YouTube.
The Women’s Champions League is expanding next season to 18 teams from 16, in a single league standings instead of groups before the knockout stage. A second tier Women’s Europa Cup also will launch.
“The five-year deal will ensure that each of the 75 matches in the newly expanded (Champions League) is available to Disney+ customers in Europe at no additional cost,” said UC3, the commercial partnership between UEFA and the European Club Association.
Broadcasts will be produced by Disney-owned ESPN with “multilingual commentary and comprehensive pre- and post-match programming,” the UC3 statement said.
The broadcast strategy through 2030 will allow one game per match week to be shown on some free-to-air networks and members of the European Broadcasting Union.
Selected games will be shown in countries including France, Germany and Spain, UC3 said.
The value of the Disney+ and EBU deals were not revealed.
UEFA has projected total “competition revenues” of 33.8 million euros ($38.4 million) next season.
A 25 million euros ($28.4 million) subsidy also comes from men’s competitions, including the Champions League, and UEFA is contributing more than 11 million euros ($12.5 million).
That should provide a total prize money fund, once running costs are deducted, of 18.2 million euros ($20.6 million) to share among the 18 Women’s Champions League teams in each of the next two seasons, UEFA has said.
Teams in the Women's Europa Cup are set to share a 5.6 million euros ($6.4 million) total prize money fund.
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The Associated Press
