Starting in 2027–28, the reigning winners of the lads’s UEFA Champions League will host a standalone Tuesday evening match to kick off Europe’s most prestigious competitors.
The new course of is impressed by the NFL, wherein every new season begins with the Super Bowl champions taking over a formidable opponent on Thursday evening. The sport prompts followers of all groups to tune in to the lone sport as pleasure builds for a contemporary marketing campaign.
The NHL and the NBA comply with the same construction; the reigning Stanley Cup champions and the reigning NBA champions each kick off their respective seasons, although these clashes aren’t standalone video games.
The change comes as a part of the brand new media rights deal for UC3, the three way partnership between UEFA and European Football Clubs, set to begin in 2027 and undergo 2033. Relevent will run the rights cycle after the American company changed UEFA’s long-term associate TEAM Marketing final 12 months.
FREE NEWSLETTER. New SI FC Newsletter Global Embed. Sign Up to Get Informed With SI FC. darkish
The Athletic report Relevent has a aim of producing €5 billion (£4.3 billion, $5.8 billion) in annual media earnings from Europe’s membership competitions. The company, subsequently, hopes to signal a take care of a serious streaming platform, like Apple, Netflix or DAZN, to be the house of at the least one Champions League match per season, very like Netflix’s Christmas Day NFL deal.
Should the unique rights deal come for a possible standalone opener, viewers from throughout the globe would all be watching the identical sport on the identical platform.
After the lone fixture on Tuesday evening, the remainder of the Champions League’s opening matches will unfold on the next Wednesday and Thursday. As of now, it’s unknown if the format will lengthen to the ladies’s Champions League.
Although the change will likely be new to Europe’s greatest stage, it’s not a overseas idea in soccer. Reigning English champions Liverpool opened up the 2025–26 season with a standalone fixture towards Bournemouth on Friday earlier than the remainder of the Premier League’s matches unfolded throughout the weekend.
The Bundesliga champions additionally host the primary sport of the season as a lone fixture on Friday. The German top-flight has adopted the format since 2002.