If anyone had predicted a few years ago this headline, “FOX acquire rights to Euro 2024 and Euro 2028,” it would have been astonishing. After all, since 2008, ESPN has held the rights to the European Championship. In fact, ESPN’s coverage has been outstanding from Euro 2008 through Euro 2020. However, critical success does not guarantee results. Sometimes, whoever bids the most wins.
While the exact terms of FOX’s acquisition are not known as of press time, what we do know is this. FOX Sports (NASDAQ: FOXA) is the new home of the UEFA national tournaments. The rights include Euro 2024, Euro 2028, and the UEFA Nations League. Also included in the package are World Cup qualifiers (from the UEFA region). On top of that, qualifiers for Euro 2024 and Euro 2028 will be featured. Subsequently, the package also includes all friendly matches controlled by UEFA.
Why the surprise? Despite the news leaking recently, it appeared that FOX Sports had lost its love of soccer. Instead, it is repositioning itself. They are now calling themselves “America’s home of global national team soccer.” Given that they have the rights to the World Cup, Women’s World Cup, Copa America and Gold Cup, that makes sense. However, that tagline does not bode well for the upcoming rights deal for Major League Soccer. Those rights are up for bid in Q4. It does not sound like a ringing endorsement of its reported interest in acquiring rights to the Premier League either.
FOX’s acquisition of UEFA national games includes more than 1,500 matches, in total. Coverage will begin in June 2022 with the UEFA Nations League.
FOX acquire rights to Euro 2024 and Euro 2028: What about streaming?
FOX’s agreement with UEFA is a six year deal.
“We are thrilled to welcome UEFA’s most-coveted events to FOX Sports’ unrivaled soccer portfolio,” said FOX Sports CEO Eric Shanks.
What is not mentioned in FOX Sports’ announcement is that many games will exclusively stream on fuboTV.
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locofooty
December 1, 2021 at 5:25 pm
The era of sublicensing is over with every provider having their own streaming service.
UnitedFan 3478
December 1, 2021 at 5:07 pm
Will Fox sublicense any UEFA games to ESPN or CBS? Or will they be on Tubi? I am wondering that because Fox has no streaming service other than Tubi.
Mo Money
November 11, 2021 at 4:18 pm
Expect FOX Sports (US) to:
1. Sublicense ALMOST ALL UEFA Euro qualifiers and UEFA World Cup qualifiers to FUBOtv with the possible exception of 1 or 2 matches on the final day of qualifying and the playoffs. Ratings for those games are too low to justify pre-empting “The Herd” with Colin Cowherd or “Speak for Yourself” on FS1.
2. Sublicense ALL UEFA Nations League matches prior to the semifinals to FUBOtv. The semifinals and the finals are in June, which fits with the FOX Sports “Summer of Soccer” strategy.
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Univision will launch “PrendeTV Premium” in early 2022. Expect most (if not all) fútbol to be moved from “PrendeTV Gratis” to “PrendeTV Premium”.
Eric T
November 7, 2021 at 2:56 pm
Fox treated Copa America horribly. They don’t care about Soccer at all. They just want cheap programming.
dave
November 5, 2021 at 3:48 pm
At the risk of being this thread’s contrarian, I agree with the recent WST podcast about keeping an open mind re Euros on Fox
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A cause for cautious optimism is that Fox is doing good with many current sports properties. Big Noon was seen as a big risk but is largely a big success. Fox’ NFL coverage is good and they did a fine job with the MLB playoffs and World Series. No big concerns when the occasional Liga MX game is on FOXD or FS2. BTN Block Party nicely covers a niche sport in a big conference. Etc. It feels like FOX Sports generally perform much better now than a few years ago.
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I watched Copa America in Spanish so I have no feedback on how Fox covered that. Was it pretty bad such that it is a negative omen for Euros? I am happy to see the reply from Christopher Harris that Univision look likely to keep the Euro rights in Spanish
José Cerrato
November 5, 2021 at 1:53 am
@Will 😮
Will
November 4, 2021 at 6:33 pm
Si
José Cerrato
November 4, 2021 at 3:02 pm
¿en serio FOX cubre tan mal los torneos de fútbol?
locofooty
November 4, 2021 at 2:26 pm
KL, incredible. The comments on FOX PR’s twitter account about the deal tells you everything lol.
Tony
November 4, 2021 at 11:56 am
Terrible news .Can you remember GUS JOHNSON doing commentary ?????? It is going to be bad all over again.
Brendan
November 4, 2021 at 10:17 am
Not a good idea .Their coverage for the World Cup is dreadful so they bring it to the Euros .
KL
November 4, 2021 at 10:14 am
I love how no one wanted this. And yet it’s happening.
Tayo
November 4, 2021 at 10:00 am
Alexi Lalas, Warren Barton… mediocre coverage is back boys!!
locofooty
November 4, 2021 at 9:17 am
Y’all enjoy Lalas lol
Greg
November 4, 2021 at 8:34 am
Great, just as I was enjoying being able to watch any Scotland game after a long 15 odd years of only seeing them when they were squashed by majors nations in qualifying like Germany in 2014
KL
November 4, 2021 at 7:37 am
Welp. Not watchin those matches anymore. Does this include matches this upcoming international window?
Christopher Harris
November 4, 2021 at 8:00 am
Broadcasts will start next summer.
Daniel
November 3, 2021 at 10:54 pm
I wont even bother if they are all over the place. They lost a fan.
Jasinho
November 3, 2021 at 10:33 pm
For a better chance at post-mortal redemption, please oh please do not put any former USWNT pundits on any Euro broadcast. I know a few on the youtube watchalong channels that would do a far superior job on the cheap than whom Fox currently employs.
David K.
November 3, 2021 at 9:49 pm
The lack of streaming option for Fox right now makes me hope that they develop one in the next 3 years before Euro 2024. Otherwise there isn’t a clear place to put all of the qualifiers. Hopefully Univision retains the Spanish rights as I enjoyed the games they streamed on PrendeTV and the price of FREE was great.
Eplnfl
November 3, 2021 at 8:56 pm
Not good news. ESPN always did a great job, Fox was and is second rate in coverage on my view. However does this mean ESPN is saving money to pick up the Premier League rights?
Rick
November 3, 2021 at 7:17 pm
Wow….games exclusively on Fubo? That’s horrible.
The Fox sports brand doesn’t have an on demand sports presence so I was wondering where the games would end up (we didn’t have to worry about this on ESPN).
This may mean more ESPN money left for EPL (considering that they are not bidding on MLS until EPL is settled).
dave
November 3, 2021 at 6:48 pm
Thank you for sharing the update. I read that FOX acquired US rights in all languages except for Spanish and Portuguese. Does that match your understanding, and do you know the status of the US rights (or negotiation timelines) in those languages?
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I will be interested to see what roles fubo and Tubi play
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What does “friendly matches controlled by UEFA” mean? Perhaps wrongly, I assumed friendlies were arranged and controlled by national associations rather than by regional confederations
Christopher Harris
November 3, 2021 at 8:15 pm
Univision is close to finalizing a deal for Spanish-language rights.
For the friendlies, that’s a good question.
greg
November 3, 2021 at 6:11 pm
Ugh. Awful news.
Will
November 3, 2021 at 5:55 pm
Not happy at all with this. Will watch in Spanish instead .