ESPN Caribbean acquired English-language rights to distribute the UEFA Football Events (2018-2022) across its platforms, as part of ESPN's broad multimedia agreement with the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).
The deal includes rights to the UEFA European Football Championship 2020 and all UEFA national team matches between 2018 and 2022.
The UEFA EURO 2020 will be played in stadiums across 13 European nations to mark the 60th anniversary of the competition.
Additionally, ESPN Caribbean has rights to a series of UEFA national team competitions, including qualifying matches to UEFA EURO 2020 and the 2022 FIFA World Cup (the European Qualifiers). The rights also include two editions of the newly created UEFA Nations League where European National teams will be divided into four divisions according to their ranking. The 12 teams in the top division will compete to participate in the UEFA Nations League Final Four to be crowned the UEFA Nations League Champions. The first edition of the UEFA Nations League will start in September 2018 and the first UEFA Nations League Final Four will be played in June 2019.
"We are pleased to extend our alliance with the UEFA and continue bringing the best of European football to Caribbean fans," said Tim Bunnell, Senior Vice President of Production, Programming, Marketing and Advertising Sales for ESPN International. "This agreement underscores our commitment to serving the Caribbean fans with the most complete coverage of marquee events throughout the year."
Highlights of UEFA EURO 2020 agreement:
ESPN Caribbean and ESPN2 Caribbean: Will televise all 51 matches live (June-July 2020); Additional coverage will include pre-match, halftime and post-match programming, branded news and highlights shows on match days, unlimited re-air rights across all networks and media platforms, magazine programs, and more;
ESPN Play: Will offer all live events on television and present additional programming;
ESPN FC: Extensive highlights rights on the network’s signature football program, including in-progress highlights;
ESPNCaribbean.com: Extensive coverage featuring video highlights, news clips, reports, columns, blogging, match previews, player profiles and real-time data. Additionally, the digital sites have the option to create digital-exclusive programming;
ESPN Social: Rights clips and shareable content across ESPN FC handles on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, et al.
UEFA National Team Package (2018-2022):
ESPN platforms (listed above) will provide year-round coverage of the European Qualifiers – UEFA EURO 2020 and 2022 FIFA World Cup – and the UEFA Nations League. In all, ESPN Caribbean will have rights to more than 1000 competitive matches featuring European national teams under this agreement.
Highlights of the European competitions covered by this agreement:
European Qualifiers to UEFA EURO 2020 (2019-2020)
European Qualifiers to 2022 FIFA World Cup (2021-2022)
UEFA Nations League (2018 and 2020)
UEFA Nations League Final Four 2019 and 2021
The UEFA Football events complement ESPN’s European soccer offerings in the Caribbean that also include the English Football League Cup, Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga, Dutch Eredivise, and French Ligue 1.
