Nine Entertainment owned Stan has won every match of the European UEFA Champions League for $12M, after Sydney start-up Sports Flick’s $60 million deal fell over the signing is seen as a ‘filler’ for Stan who are desperate to get premium sports streaming onto their service.
The three-year deal between Stan and the Union of European Football Associations allows for key matches, such as the finals, to air on Channel 9, gives the streaming platform rights to every match of the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, UEFA Europa Conference League and UEFA Youth League as well as rights to the UEFA Super Cup but not the all-important UK Premier League whose rights are held by Optus for the Australian market.
The new Stan deal was announced on the same day that Foxtel announced a major renewal of their deal with beIN SPORTS which gives them access to Northern Hemisphere Rugby as well as European football and Tennis.
Stan Sport signed their three-year deal with the Union of European Football Associations who previously had a deal with Optus who refused to pay the sort of money that Sports Flicks was initially offering.
What emerged was that Sports Flick was unable to get financial guarantees for their offer.
UEFA contacted rival bidders to resume the process and sources close to the negotiations say Stan came out on top with an offer with Foxtel concentrating on premium sports over fringe overseas sports.
Stan acting chief executive Martin Kugeler said, “Today’s multi-year partnership announcement with UEFA reflects Stan’s commitment to bringing premium sports to Australian fans”.
Stan Sport’s UEFA coverage will kick off on August 12 with the UEFA Super Cup match between this year’s Champions League winner Chelsea and Europa League winner Villarreal.
Nine Network claimed that around 1.3 million people watched the Super Rugby final between the Queensland Reds and ACT Brumbies live across Stan Sport, Channel 9, 9GEM and 9Now last month, they failed to reveal how many actually signed up and paid for a Stan subscription.
Mike Sneesby, the Nine Entertainment CEO and former boss of Stan, last month said Stan Sport was approaching 150,000 active subscribers, with around 75,000 those new to Stan.
Earlier this month, Optus Sport secured the broadcast rights to the FIFA 2023 Women’s World Cup for an estimated $US8million ($10.4 million).
ChannelNews understands that Stan, Foxtel and Optus are set to do battle shortly for the rights to the English Premier League with a decision set to be made in early 2022.
In 2015 Optus agreed to pay $63 million a year for the English Premier League, renewing the deal in 2018 for an undisclosed figure.
Ratings for the English Premier League coverage in Australia have not been revealed.
