Champions League shake-up pays off as battle for viewers intensifies
Uefa’s rejig of its flagship tournament has boosted fan engagement and revenues ahead of competition from Fifa’s expanded Club World Cup
Uefa is under pressure. As football’s governing bodies jostle for global dominance, Europe’s premier club competition — the Champions League — faces a growing threat to its pre-eminence from Fifa’s ambitious new Club World Cup.
With 75 years of history since it was formed as the European Cup, the Champions League remains football’s most lucrative and prestigious club tournament, set to generate the lion’s share of the €4.4bn in revenue forecast by Uefa across their three club competitions this season. But Fifa is encroaching, launching an expanded 32-team Club World Cup, with a $1bn prize pot, to be held in the US this summer. The move underscores a broader power struggle that could reshape the club football calendar.
Yet despite the external pressure — and the internal gamble of a major format overhaul — there is a strong feeling in Uefa’s headquarters in the picturesque town of Nyon on the banks of Lake Geneva that the 2024/25 competition has delivered. At the end of the first season of a new format, which involved some teams playing an additional four matches, Uefa officials are hoping for a dream final in both a footballing and financial sense with Paris Saint-Germain meeting Inter Milan at Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena, on May 31.
PSG are seeking to win the competition for the first time after spending more than €2bn on new players in the 14 years of ownership by Qatar Sports Investment. They are up against three-times winners Inter, whose extraordinary 7-6 aggregate semi-final win over Barcelona will be remembered as one of the greatest ties in the history of European football.
Earlier rounds of this year’s tournament provided ample drama of their own. Real Madrid, the holders, suffered a 5-1 quarter-final aggregate defeat to Arsenal, while earlier in the new group table phase, Manchester City and PSG were both forced into the knockout play-offs after failing to finish in the top eight.
Uefa had taken a significant gamble, introducing the most radical changes to the competition since the European Cup became the Champions League in 1992. Four teams were added this season and the traditional group stage was scrapped in favour of the so-called Swiss model — a format first used at a chess tournament in Zurich in 1895. All 36 clubs were placed in a single league, each playing eight matches against different opponents. The top eight progressed directly to the round of 16; teams finishing ninth to 24th entered play-offs; and the bottom eight were eliminated.
As well as more matches to drive revenue growth, the overriding reason for the new format was an attempt to introduce greater jeopardy to the group phase. Analysis conducted by the European Clubs Association (ECA), which represents 700 clubs and is responsible for selling the Champions League’s commercial rights in a joint venture with Uefa, after this season’s league phase indicates that this primary aim was achieved.
Whereas 13 of the last 16 qualifiers had been decided ahead of the final round of group matches last season, only two teams had definitely qualified before the final round this season. In addition, the number of teams progressing to the knockout rounds from outside Europe’s top five leagues increased from three to six this season, suggesting greater competitive balance. In a less democratic development, the tournament’s final 24 did not contain any teams from east of Munich.
Before Match day 8 — the final round of league games in January — just three points separated third-placed Arsenal from Brest in 13th: the 14 qualification places up for grabs led to a TV bonanza with the UK rights holder TNT Sports claiming it had attracted the best viewing figures of the 2024/2025 season so far.
“We had high hopes, and the new format has definitely delivered,” says Charlie Marshall, chief executive of the ECA. “Match day 8 in particular was a real success — the competition caught fire.”
He adds: “Unlike under the old format, every game and goal counted . . . From a financial perspective, the market has over-delivered . . . The potential for future growth is huge.”
Uefa has not yet completed its full financial review, but early indicators are strong. A senior official at the organisation, speaking anonymously, says viewing figures have grown by double digits across all major markets. Television rights values had already increased ahead of this season, the source says. The global value of Champions League broadcast rights rose 20 per cent across the 2024-2027 cycle, compared to the previous three years, while commercial rights jumped by 25 per cent.
TNT Sports (formerly BT Sports), which has held rights for a decade, says its audience reach rose by 28 per cent this season, compared to the previous season, with minutes watched up 7 per cent. Amazon Prime, the other UK rights holder, is in the first year of a four-year deal.
“We were initially concerned that the league phase may not be understood, but it’s been a big success,” says Andrew Georgiou, president of Warner Bros Discovery Sports Europe, the company which operates TNT Sports. “There’s been more jeopardy, and more matches between the biggest clubs.
He expects a further boost next year after two English clubs made it to the final of Uefa’s second tier competition with the winners qualifying for next season’s Champions League. “The Premier League is now guaranteed six teams in the Champions League next season after Manchester United and Tottenham reached the Europa League final, so audiences in the UK are likely to increase further.”
Still, the physical toll of the longer format has sparked concerns. Fifpro, the international players’ union, says the extended competition has contributed to a noticeable rise in injuries at elite clubs. The union would strongly oppose any further expansion — something the current format could theoretically accommodate.
Marshall insists there are no plans to do so as “we need to be relentlessly focused on delivering a premium, quality product”.
Despite such worries about future plans and despite the potential threat posed by Fifa’s new competition, Uefa’s bet on a complex new format, for this season at least, appears to be paying off.