CBS Sports is poised to become the new US broadcaster of the Uefa Women’s Champions League from 2025-26, SportBusiness understands.
The US broadcaster and sister streaming service Paramount+ are expected to take on the rights after emerging victorious in an invitation to tender issued at the start of the year. Any deal is still to be fully signed off.
A standalone deal in a switch to CBS Sports and Paramount+ would serve as a boost to the tournament, which has been broadcast stateside over the last four seasons on DAZN and YouTube. It follows the news last week that Disney+ has secured the UWCL’s pay-television rights in Europe in a five-year deal.
Two Circles initiated the UWCL rights sales processes in Europe and the Americas on January 3. Two pan-regional tenders were issued, one for Europe and one for the Americas, for the 2025-30 cycle.
The pan-regional Americas tender afforded interested parties the opportunity to bid on a single territory or for multiple territories. One single package was made available across all territories except for the United States, where the option to acquire Spanish-language rights independently from English-language rights was offered.
CBS Sports and Paramount+ already hold rights to the men’s Uefa club competitions in a six-year deal running from 2024-25 to 2029-30 and worth around $250m (€221m) per season. The duo also hold men’s Serie A rights in a two-year deal covering 2024-25 and 2025-26.
A UWCL deal with CBS Sports would step up the broadcaster’s commitment to airing international women’s sports properties.
It was recently announced that CBS Sports and Paramount+ will show all of the US rugby union national team’s matches for at least the next five years after purchasing a rights bundle, including the men’s Rugby World Cup and next two editions of the Women’s Rugby World Cups. At the core of the deal is the 2027 Rugby World Cup and the Women’s Rugby World Cups in 2025 and 2029, plus the two different tournaments to be held in the US in 2031 and 2033, respectively.
CBS Sports is also one of four domestic broadcasters of the National Women’s Soccer League in four-year media rights deals running until 2027.
The 2025-30 cycle will herald a new UWCL format featuring a league phase with 18 teams, followed by a play-off round. For the first time, centralised sponsorship rights will be in place from the first match of the league phase onwards.
Following Saturday’s final between Arsenal and Barcelona in Lisbon, DAZN has concluded its four-season contract for UWCL rights globally (excluding China and the Middle East and North Africa). That deal is worth in the region of €7m ($7.9m) per year.
The move by Disney+ for UWCL rights, along with the free-to-air footprint, was discussed in detail in the latest edition of the SportBusiness Podcast.