The Future of the Champions League, With Lessons From F1
UEFA is looking to New York-based Relevent Sports to innovate its offering and unlock the value of its IP and cultural heritage that has gone untapped for years.
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In case you missed it last week, UEFA (the governing body for European football) announced a historic deal with Relevent Sports, which will see the American company sell and manage media, licensing and sponsorship rights to European men’s club competitions — including the Champions, Europa and Conference Leagues — for a six-season cycle, beginning in 2027.
What Do I Need to Know?
It’s a deal that will have significant knock-on effects on the future of European football. Firstly, it brings an end to UEFA’s 30-year relationship with TEAM Marketing, the Swiss-based agency that grew the Champions League into one of the most valuable properties in global sport.
The New York-based company, which says it will create a fresh agency and separate legal entity to service the partnership, was selected because of its ambitious pitch to bring European football into the future. There was a feeling that, despite the undeniable success and global popularity of European competitions like the Champions League, Relevant’s reputation as an innovative and disruptive agency aligned better with UEFA’s ambitions than the more conservative approach of TEAM.
Relevent is part of a portfolio of sports properties and real estate controlled by American businessman Stephen Ross, which includes the Miami Dolphins, Hard Rock Stadium, F1 Miami Grand Prix, Miami Open Tennis and the luxury fitness chain, Equinox.
UC3, the joint venture between UEFA and the European Club Association, said that Relevent was chosen after an open tender process because of its “innovative, dynamic and forward-looking vision”.
The Athletic has a tidy breakdown of the particulars of the deal.
The White Spaces in European Football
Many people have already concluded that Relevent’s appointment will result in an Americanized look and feel for Europe’s elite competitions since UC3 announced in February that it had entered an exclusive period of negotiation with the New York-based company. Ideas (or concerns) shared by some commentators include a Champions League final played in the US, with a Super Bowl-style halftime show.
But UEFA and Relevent aren’t naive and will understand that to immediately propose something as radical as a US-based Champions League final could spark a full-scale backlash from European football fans already wary of attempts to reform the beautiful game (see: 2021 European Super League disaster). That’s not to say, however, that will we never see Champions League games one day played in the US (the Spanish Super Cup has been played in Saudi Arabia for the past few seasons, while Relevent has worked with La Liga since 2018 to promote the competition in the US, resulting in pre-season El Classico ties between Barcelona and Real Madrid on American soil.)
But as The Athletic points out, a more likely short-term outcome of this deal is that Relevent will help UEFA unlock more football-related content to sell to media outlets and enhance the value of its competitions. This includes the prospect of transforming moments like competition launches, awards ceremonies and draws into full-blown cultural events, focused on driving in-person and online fan engagement as well as TV viewership.
The fact is, UEFA is sitting on a treasure chest of untapped IP and cultural potential that has been considerably under-utilized and under-commercialized so far. For example, there is great potential to modernize events like the Balon d’Or ceremony (one of the world’s most prestigious sporting awards) and the Champions League draw and even leveraging the world-famous Champions League anthem for more than its traditional pre-game in-stadium use.
There are also limitless possibilities when it comes to opening the Champions League up through simple but effective tools leaned on by other sports properties—like fly-on-the-wall Netflix docuseries—to refresh their image and bring in new demographics of fans who consume sports in different ways to traditional audiences.
Lessons From Formula 1 and Others
There’s no doubt that Relevent will be looking to emulate the success achieved by Formula 1 under Liberty Media, in modernising the competition’s look and feel while expanding into new markets and also keeping traditional fans engaged. Its F1 75 showcase at London’s 02 Center, while met with mixed reviews, was undoubtedly an early experiment at leveraging the tournament’s unique history, heritage and IP to create fresh, monetized fan and broadcast experiences. It is along these lines, no doubt, that Relevent and UEFA will look to bolster the commercial appeal of the Champions League and other flagship properties.
F1 is now an entertainment brand as much as it is a racing series and its set of next media rights deals will certainly reflect that.
ESPN's previous F1 media rights renewal in 2022 increased the rights fee to roughly $90 million per year. But that agreement predated the sport’s full-scale US expansion, with the Miami and Las Vegas debuting in May 2022 and November 2023 respectively. F1 is expected to seek a sizable media rights increase in the US for the next cycle, which begins from the 2026 season onwards.
Beyond the impact of Drive to Survive, which is well established and clear for all to see at this point, Liberty Media has transformed the commercial value of the competition from top to bottom, exemplified in recent years by an influx of sponsorship dollars from partners that would have never considered investing so significantly in F1. Take the fashion and beauty world as an example.
There’s LVMH’s 10-year, $1 billion partnership with F1, announced late last year. Adidas entered the sport for the first time with its big-ticket Mercedes partnership. Alo Yoga buys pop-up space at the Miami Grand Prix. Sponsors from the beauty industry are also getting involved, including brands like Charlotte Tilbury. (Toni Cowan-Brown, the go-to source for all things culture and tech as it relates to motorsports published this timely and thorough piece on the role of fashion in Formula 1 and how it has evolved over the decades.)
Meanwhile, another case study likely to be top of mind for Relevent and UEFA — especially for untapped flagship events like the Champions League draw — is the NFL Draft. What could be a straightforward event that simply sees teams select players, players shake hands with agents and team officials and pose for photos, is turbocharged into a three-day football-culture festival tailored to different cities each year, that draws in local and global fan engagement, commercial sponsorship and ever-growing TV audiences — another valuable asset that can be sold to media rights buyers.
(According to the NFL, coverage of Round 1 of the 2024 NFL Draft attracted 12.1 million viewers across ESPN, NFL Network, ABC, ESPN Deportes and digital channels, up more than 6 percent year-over-year.)
It’s safe to say that a Champions League final played in Miami may be an unpopular choice for many football fans. But long before we get to anything like that, there are many things UEFA can do to bring one of the world’s most beloved sporting competitions closer to modern fan culture.
That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
Until next time!
DYM
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Awesome read! If they do a final in Miami hopefully they learn from the Copa America debacle and have some decent security this time around lol. Do feel the euro fans will not be happy similar to how the Super league was received but only time will tell if it happens, baseball brings their games to Japan because it’s the number one sport there but not sure people are as receptive here to world football.