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*Rights in 2021-24 cycle across five Balkan markets to be worth €46m per season
• Uefa income rises 134 per cent in new deals with Telekom Srbija, HRT
• Aggressive competition between Telkom Srbija, United Media grows
Uefa has more than doubled the value of its club competition media rights across five Balkan countries, awarding almost all rights to aggressive bidder Telekom Srbija, as the telco’s battle with rival United Media intensified.
European football’s governing body sold rights to the Champions League, Europa League and newly-created third-tier Europa Conference League, from 2021-22 to 2023-24, in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. SportBusiness Media understands the combined value of the rights is about €46m ($50m) per season.
Uefa’s total income is an increase of about 134 per cent on the current 2018-19 to 2020-21 cycle, in which it earns about €19.65m per season from multiple deals across the five countries.
Serbian telco Telekom Srbija has won all Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League rights on offer in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia
In Croatia, public-service broadcaster HRT has renewed its rights to the first-pick Wednesday Champions League match. Telekom Srbija acquired all other rights in the country. Telekom Srbija’s total outlay across the five territories in the new 2021-24 cycle will be about €43m per season. HRT will pay about €3m per season for its package of rights.
Telekom Srbija owns the pay-television Arena Sport channels in the region through its subsidiary company HD-WIN.
Grafik: Bosna, Hırvatistan, Karadağ, Kuzey Makedonya, Sırbistan haklarını 2018-19 - 2020-21 döneminde 19,65 milyon avro; 2021-22 - 2023-24 döneminde 46milyon avro gösteriyor. Yeni anlaşmanın 43 milyonunu Telekom Srbija ödeyecek, 3 milyonunu çarşamba maçlarının Hırvatistan'da ilk seçim hakkına sahip olmak için HRT ödeyecek. Diğer tüm haklar Telekom Srbija'da bölgede.
Current deals Telekom Srbija is an incumbent rights-holder of Uefa club competitions in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia.
The telco pays about €2.8m per season and about €1.35m per season for its exclusive rights in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro, respectively.
In Serbia, it holds rights to all Champions League matches, apart from the first-pick Wednesday match, and all Europa League matches apart from the first pick. Serbian public-service broadcaster RTS acquired both the first-pick Wednesday Champions League matches and the first-pick Europa League matches.
The combined value of the rights in the country is about €7m per season for the 2018-21 cycle.
In Croatia, aside from HRT’s rights to the first-pick Wednesday Champions League match, all other Champions League matches are broadcast by Telekom Austria-owned telco A1 Hrvatska. Exclusive rights to the Europa League were acquired by telco Hrvatski Telekom. The value of the combined deals in Croatia for the 2018-21 cycle is about €6.5m per season.
In North Macedonia, telco Makedonski Telekom, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, holds exclusive rights to the Champions League and Europa League for the 2018-21 cycle, in deals worth about €2m per season.
First-round knockouts Uefa, through its exclusive club competition sales agent Team Marketing , launched ten tenders in the five territories on January 15; five in each territory for the Champions League and five in each for Europa League/Europa Conference League. Both tenders had a bid deadline of February 10. The Champions League tender also covered rights to the Uefa Super Cup and Uefa Youth League.
Telekom Srbija secured all rights in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia in the first round of bidding. In all three markets, the telco put in knockout first-round bids that were more than double the value of the current rights.
It was expecting aggressive competition from rival United Media. The media group owns the pay-television Sportklub channels and commercial Nova channels in the Balkan region. United Media is thought to have bid strongly – especially for rights in Serbia where it bid at least 50 per cent more than the current value – but it was not expecting Telekom Srbija’s level of aggression.
Uefa also awarded Telekom Srbija its Champions League rights in North Macedonia in the first round. Incumbent Makedonski Telekom is thought to have bid without getting close to Telekom Srbija’s offer.
Makedonski Telekom owner Deutsche Telekom has an exclusive distribution agreement with Telekom Srbija’s Arena Sport channels not only in North Macedonia, but also in Croatia and Montenegro.
Deutsche Telekom uses Arena Sport as its exclusive production partner in those Balkan territories where it acquires rights. Despite not having production capabilities, if it is the rightsholder of a certain property then it holds leverage over Telekom Srbija in carriage negotiations.
Several market experts predict that going forward, Telekom Srbija will seek to distribute its Arena Sport channels more widely, as opposed to exclusively with Deutsche Telekom, in order to maximise revenue.
Croatia battle
Uefa awarded rights in Croatia to all three club competitions, and in North Macedonia to the Europa League and Europa Conference, after a second round of bidding that took place on February 14.
In Croatia, competition for the rights was also strong. In addition to the eventual winners, Telekom Srbija and HRT, bids emerged from United Media and incumbent Champions League rights-holder Telekom Austria.
Telekom Srbija will pay about €7m per season for its Champions League rights in Croatia for the 2021-24 cycle. This is an increase in value of about 150 per cent on the approximate €2.8m per season Telekom Austria currently pays for the same rights.
HRT will pay about 76 per cent more for its first-pick Champions League match in the 2021-24 cycle; it pays about €1.7m per season in the 2018-21 cycle.
For the Europa League and Europa Conference League, Telekom Srbija will pay about €4m per season for its 2021-24 rights. Hrvatski Telekom currently pays about €2m per season for its Europa League rights.
At the time of the previous tender, several market experts suggested Hrvatski Telekom overpaid for its rights. It is thought the telco was surprised when Uefa awarded the Champions League rights to rival Telekom Austria and wanted to compensate with the Europa League.
United v Telekom Industry experts were surprised at how far Telekom Srbija was prepared to go to secure the Uefa club competition rights and speculated on how it would finance the expenditure.
Telekom Srbija is state-owned, and it is thought United Media believe that to be an unfair advantage as the telco does not have to justify business decisions, nor does it believe that the Serbian state should be funding these commercial agreements. United Media is owned by private equity firm BC Partners.
Several local executives told SportBusiness Media that the commercial battle between Telekom Srbija and United Media has become political. Serbian prime minister Ana Brnabić has publicly commented on the ongoing carriage dispute between the two for the distribution of United Media’s news channel N1, siding with Telekom Srbija.
Telekom Srbija and United Media have competed for sports rights for many years but have also been able to agree carriage deals for the latter’s Sportklub channels.
Telekom Srbija has been acquiring a host of smaller cable operators over the last two years, including several that already had distribution agreements with Sportklub. Talks have been ongoing between United Media and the Telekom-owned operators, which use the collective brand name Supernova.
It is thought United Media was trying to get Telekom Srbija to specifically identify the cable operators in its network that would be able to access the Sportklub channels to avoid overspill. United Media wanted these specifics in the contract, rather than just a verbal promise from Telekom Srbija, to be able to accurately understand the distribution.
However, Telekom Srbija has claimed in local press that United Media wanted to restrict its expansion as a price for securing a deal. It also claimed that a major barrier in the negotiations was United Media’s launch of a new subscription channel, Nova Sport, in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia. Sportklub remains in all markets, with Nova using selected content. The telco claimed that United Media had failed to guarantee any specifics on the existing content that would remain on Sportklub.
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