Amazon Buys European Champions League Soccer Rights
Amazon.com Inc. secured rights to stream some European Champions League soccer games to German viewers.
“We’re delighted to bring the top-pick Tuesday matches to our customers from 2021,” Alex Green, who heads Amazon’s sports streaming business in Europe, said in a statement. The company declined to say how much it paid.
Amazon is starting to chisel away at Sky’s dominance of sports broadcasting in Europe’s biggest economy. Comcast Corp.’s Sky and billionaire Len Blavatnik’s streaming company DAZN currently share broadcasting of the tournament in Germany, where soccer is a major driver of pay-TV subscriptions.
Amazon has already secured a foothold in Sky’s U.K. market and showed the first Premier League matches to viewers on its Prime Video service last week without major technical glitches.
Sky said the tender of German rights to the Champions League is still ongoing, and declined to comment further. DAZN said it’s awaiting the outcome of the process.