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BT to show Europa League, Champions League finals free on YouTube
| 12 May 2016
Acting in a way that will delight not only its non-subscribers but also European football governing body UEFA, BT Sport is to offer free on YouTube the finals of the European competitions it holds rights to.
The plan is for the IPTV provider to stream its Freeview BT Sport Showcase channel on YouTube for both the UEFA Europa League final between Liverpool and Sevilla on 18 May and for the UEFA Champions League final between Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid on 28 May. The matches will also be shown live on YouTube at youtube.com/btsport and bt.com. Neither final has ever been made available for free on the video platform before.
BT has held exclusive rights to screen live Europa League and Champions League games in the UK since August 2015 and says that the move will bring the matches within reach of millions of additional fans who do not yet subscribe to BT Sport. The company claims that BT Sport has proven popular with sports fans since its launch almost three years ago and that over five million homes now subscribe to the channels with the service also available in over 27,000 UK commercial premises.
However, there have been reports of misgivings at UEFA that its decision to hand live UK rights to a pay-TV provider has been bad for the tournaments. It is said that even though UEFA has admired the production capabilities of the BT offer, it has been particular concerned in the reportedly low viewing figures since the free-to-air aspect of coverage was ended for UK viewers.
Yet commenting on the development, John Petter, chief executive of BT Consumer, claimed that UEFA was ‘delighted’ with what BT had achieved in its first year as the broadcaster of the Champions League and Europa League. He revealed that the Manchester City Champions League semi-final second leg against Real Madrid had an audience peak of 1.7 million while Liverpool’s 4-3 triumph against Borussia Dortmund — a game that Petter said BT Sport was one of the truly outstanding European matches and which was a privilege to show — attracted a similar audience.
“We’ve always said we wanted to give top quality sport back to the people and making the UEFA Champions League and Europa League finals free to everyone in the UK does this in a big way,” Petter added. “We’re also bringing BT Sport to a new generation of younger sports fans who view their entertainment online, through social media and on their mobile devices. We plan to make these finals the most social sports broadcast ever, with lots of exciting content in the build-up and on the night across YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Vine”.
In a separate move bolstering BT’s football coverage, EE, the UK’s biggest 4G mobile network provider and part of BT Group, will introduce a new offer to bring BT Sport to its customers, initially those on 4GEE pay monthly mobile plans, in time for the start of the next football season in August 2016.
Stephen Nuttall, YouTube’s senior director in EMEA, expressed similar enthusiasm, divulging that football was YouTube’s biggest sport and that the online video platform was host to over 300 football clubs, 37 leagues and channels from BT Sport to UEFA. “At YouTube, we love football and we’re thrilled to give UK supporters more ways to watch BT Sport’s fantastic live coverage of these two massive games. Fans today expect quality content on every screen and this partnership enables just that,” he remarked.