UEFA ends Team deal: WHY?

After entering into exclusive negotiations with US-based Relevant Sports over the global commercial rights to its men’s club competitions, Uefa appears to be ending its lengthy association with Team Marketing.

Relevent would sell global commercial rights to the Uefa Champions League, Europa League, and Conference League for the 2027–2033 cycle if those talks succeed, a position Team has played for more than three decades.

UC3, a joint venture between Uefa and the European Club Association (ECA), said it entered exclusive talks with Relevent after ‘an open bidding process’ last summer that yielded offers from ‘a number of global and regional agencies’. The process should finish ‘in the next weeks’. Team, which was founded in 1991 to sell the commercial rights to Uefa’s premier club championship, will be devastated by the news. It helped shape the tournament’s identity.

The Independent said that Uefa’s decision shocked Team and angered many involved. Switzerland-based Team said that it had been informed of Uefa’s decision to negotiate exclusively with Relevent shortly after the announcement.

Team lost its exclusive grasp on Uefa’s club competitions in 2022 when European soccer’s governing body granted the 2024–2027 US media rights sales contract to Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross’ Relevent.

The agency signed a US$1.5 billion, six-year deal with Paramount to keep the Champions League on CBS, which also airs the Europa League and Conference League. Even that was unusual for Uefa, which had historically extended with Team rather than tendering the rights.

After that, Team retained commercial rights for the rest of the world, but it was reported that it had cut its commission. In 2024, Team partnered with Fiba to sell the commercial rights to the Basketball Champions League (BCL) and Intercontinental Cup to reduce its dependence on Uefa.

The corporation also created T/Squared to handle its new business activities, which now brokers transactions for the Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup tennis competitions. Uefa’s partnership with Relevent will fuel US Champions League game speculation again. The agency, which created the International Champions Cup (ICC) preseason competition, has worked to bring foreign league games to America.

In 2023, Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin indicated competitive Champions League games in the US were “possible”.