SRF wants to continue showing top European soccer in the future
The auction for TV rights to UEFA club competitions is coming up. It remains to be seen who will win the bid in Switzerland. SRG plans to participate in the bidding.
As reported by SonntagsBlick, the tender period of the European Football Association Uefa for the TV rights of the Champions League and Europa League expires on December 3. This involves the period after the upcoming 2020/2021 season.
It remains to be seen whether the situation in Switzerland will change. Teleclub is probably still in pole position. The Swisscom subsidiary currently holds exclusive rights to the Champions League and is the only broadcaster to show all matches live. The Teleclub sports subscription is also offered to customers of competitors UPC and Sunrise for an additional charge. Swisscom TV customers can buy individual matches for CHF 7.50.
In June 2017, it was announced that Teleclub had secured the rights to the two European club competitions from the 2018/2019 season (Werbewoche.ch reported). A setback for SRG: For years, SRF had previously shown one match each on Tuesday and Wednesday on free TV.
Competition keeps a low profile
However, SRF did not go away completely empty-handed: SRF 2 secured the rights to show a Champions League match every Wednesday (Werbewoche.ch reported). SRG is said to have paid around CHF 4 million for this deal. This is in stark contrast to Teleclub, which - according to insiders quoted in SonntagsBlick - pays 20 million francs per season for exclusive coverage of all matches. Dimensions into which SRG cannot and will not penetrate due to the pressure to save money. Before the pay-TV broadcasters entered the bidding race with such determination, SRG was able to obtain a comprehensive rights package at relatively low cost due to the small Swiss market, which most public broadcasters in other European countries could only dream of.
It is unclear whether Teleclub is in danger of losing the exclusive rights for the period from the 2021/2022 season. Neither UPC nor the Swiss branch of Sky Deutschland wanted to comment to SonntagsBlick and thus let us look into their cards. In any case, it is likely to be expensive: A bid must be around 20 percent higher for a competitor to be awarded the rights without another round.
SRG participates in the tender
Only SRG is expressing its opinion. According to Roland Mägerle, Head of SRF Sport and Business Unit Sport SRG, they want to continue to offer the European club competitions to the free-TV audience: "That's why SRG is taking part in the tenders for the next three seasons." In the interest of fee payers, however, there is a clearly defined upper limit. So it won't be possible to make too many big leaps at Leutschenbach in future seasons either - the resources are too limited in the ever more expensive battle for soccer TV rights.
SRF still shows a lot of sports
Yet Swiss sports fans are still relatively spoiled on free TV. 30 sports are shown live, and SRG spends almost 50 million francs a year on this coverage. While in many parts of Europe the most important sporting events - especially in soccer - can now only be seen for a fee, in Switzerland there is still plenty to watch. Even if the costs are indirectly borne by the viewer via the fees, of course. Teleclub also shows games available free of charge on its own free TV channel Zoom. The channel is also available to non-Swisscom TV customers from competitor providers such as Sunrise TV, Salt TV, Zattoo and UPC.
