The media rights sales process for the new cycle of the Uefa Women’s Champions League will officially begin on January 3, the first to be run by the Two Circles agency.
Two pan-regional tenders will be issued, one for Europe and one for the Americas, for the 2025-26 to 2029-30 cycle.
Uefa Club Competitions SA (UCCSA), the joint venture between Uefa and the European Club Association (ECA) responsible for managing the commercial and business aspects of continental club competitions, said today (Tuesday) that the European tender process will invite bidders to submit offers for one or multiple territories.
Three packages will be made available in all European territories, giving an opportunity for free-to-air broadcasters, pay-television broadcasters and streaming platforms to acquire between 15 to 375 matches across the five seasons.
The pan-regional Americas tender process will afford interested parties the opportunity to bid on a single territory or for multiple territories. One single package will be made available across all territories except for the United States, where the option to acquire Spanish-language rights independently from English-language rights will be on offer.
First-round bids are due by 5pm (CET) on February 3.
SportBusiness exclusively revealed in June that Two Circles had been identified as the winning bidder for the UWCL global broadcast and sponsorship rights sales remit, with the long-form agreement signed off and formally announced a month later. Since then, Two Circles has finalised its acquisition of Spring Media to help build up a sales team to distribute the rights.
Sources have told SportBusiness that the agency is likely to tilt the UWCL heavily towards an exposure-led strategy that prioritises sponsorship income and fan engagement, relying far less on media rights deals for its overall revenue. Uefa hopes this will make the competition more appealing to free-to-air broadcasters currently reluctant to pay rights fees for women’s club matches.
The 2025-30 cycle heralds a new format for the showpiece European club competition in women’s football, featuring a league phase with 18 teams, followed by a play-off round. For the first time, centralised sponsorship rights will be in place from the first match of the league phase onwards.
The Two Circles-Uefa deal spells the end of DAZN’s direct hold over the competition’s media rights globally (excluding China and the Middle East and North Africa) from 2025-26.
YouTube audiences for the UWCL on DAZN have, according to most industry observers, served to underline that the competition’s strongest commercial model is a significant free-to-air footprint to maximise sponsorship revenues. DAZN announced in November 2023 that all of the 2023-24 UWCL group-stage fixtures up until matchday four would be shown free on YouTube, scrapping its plan to move matches behind a paywall. Thereafter, the free coverage shifted to the DAZN app.
European Broadcasting Union members in the Netherlands (NOS), Norway (NRK), Serbia (RTS), Spain (RTVE) and Sweden (SVT) acquired rights to the 2023-24 UWCL final, in which Barcelona beat Lyon 2-0.
During its first season of centralisation in 2021-22, the UWCL generated €15.2m ($16.4m) in revenue.
Over half – €8.1m – stemmed from media rights following the international deal with DAZN, an agreement in the Mena region with beIN Sports and rights sales in China. Only €6.8m came from sponsorship rights sales in season one but that number has since swollen following high-profile additions to the Uefa Women’s Football Partner programme.
The €24m distributed by Uefa among 2023-24 UWCL teams stemmed from the tournament’s net revenue, ticket sales at the final, investment from Uefa and €10m in cross-financing from Uefa men’s club competitions.
Two Circles’ UCCSA contract also includes sponsorship sales for the Women’s Euro 2029, Women’s Futsal Championship, the Women’s Under-19 and Under-17 Championships and the #WePlayStrong marketing platform.
UCCSA said that parties wanting to participate in the Europe and/or Americas UWCL tender processes can request more details via email (UWCLtender@twocircles.com).