September 8 – With the UEFA Champions League kicking off tonight, Nielsen Sports has released new data showing the 2025/26 viewing audience hit 1.9 billion worldwide.
This is the highest global reach since the 2017/18 when the UCL boasted more free-to-air broadcast offerings.
Nielsen Sports says the numbers have driven a season-on-season Quality Index (QI) sponsor media value increase of 30% to 40%. The current average sponsorship deal stands at $50m+ annually, but Nielsen says that going forward into the new rights cycle at the end of this season “average deal sizes are expected to rise significantly”.
The broadcast data relates to live match consumption, but there has also been a major increase in social media content with total engagements topping 1.51 billion.
Nielsen said this is “sponsor-related content posted by the UCL, participating clubs, players, and major sports media outlets”.
Brand presence across official Champions League TikTok and Instagram channels delivered an average post QI Media Value of nearly €85,000, said Nielsen.
Andy Milnes, Market Lead for Sports, UK & Ireland at Nielsen Sports, said: “The UEFA Champions League continues to set the benchmark for global sports properties, with a fanbase of over 860 million that rivals any league in the world. Reaching a broadcast audience of 1.9 billion last season demonstrates the tremendous appetite for live European football.”
This season will be the third of the reformatted UCL that saw the traditional group play swapped for a new league structure qualifying 24 of 36 teams for the knock-out rounds.
This is the last season of the current UCL commercial cycle which will see some significant strategic changes from the start of the 2027/28 season.
These include some significant new sponsors with AB InBev already in place to take over from Heineken’s 30-year beer sponsorship; a more flexible approach to length of deals, coming off the traditional three-year renewal cycle where appropriate; and a bundling of the UCL with the Europa League and Conference League.
“As we look ahead to the 2027/28 commercial cycle with Relevent, the transition toward multi-tier package bundling and flexible contract lengths represents a modernised approach to sports sponsorship. Brands are moving beyond traditional three-year terms to build tailored, long-term alignments that deliver measurable returns across live broadcasts and digital platforms,” said Milne.
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