UEFA Champions League, Europa League Finals to Stream on YouTube

LONDON: BT Sport has struck a deal with YouTube that will see the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League finals being streamed live on the digital platform.

BT has unveiled a wider set of plans to bring its BT Sport channels to millions of additional sports fans through a range of digital channels. In addition to the YouTube deal for the Freeview BT Sport Showcase channel, EE will launch a new BT Sport offer to its customers before the start of the new football season. The offer will initially be for customers on 4GEE pay monthly mobile plans. Earlier this week it was announced that TalkTalk TV customers will be able to sign up to BT Sport ahead of the new Premier League football season.

John Petter, chief executive of BT Consumer, said: “We’ve always said we wanted to give top-quality sport back to the people and making the UEFA Champions League and Europa League finals free to everyone in the U.K. does this in a big way. We’re also bringing BT Sport to a new generation of younger sports fans who view their entertainment online, through social media and on their mobile devices. We plan to make these finals the most social sports broadcast ever, with lots of exciting content in the build-up and on the night across YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Vine.

“Both BT and UEFA are delighted with what we have achieved in our first year as the broadcaster of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League.

“The Manchester City semi-final second leg against Real Madrid had an audience peak of 1.7 million and we were privileged to show what most people regard as one of the truly outstanding European matches when Liverpool came back to beat Borussia Dortmund 4-3 in the Europa League quarter finals. That game had an audience high of 1.6 million, which is fantastic.

“Now we want to make sure that millions more sports fans can join in from next season, accessing content digitally, whether that’s through social media, mobile devices or digital TV.

“BT Sport has pioneered the way when it comes to new technologies and digital platforms, whether that’s live Ultra HD, our immersive BT Sport App or red button functionality on YouView. Today’s announcements will take this further, and there’s plenty more that we’re looking at, whether that’s more programming in live Ultra HD, new App developments or our recent virtual-reality trials at the FA Cup semi-finals and NBA.”

Stephen Nuttall, YouTube’s senior director in EMEA, commented: “At YouTube, we love football and we’re thrilled to give U.K. supporters more ways to watch BT Sport’s fantastic live coverage of these two massive games. Fans today expect quality content on every screen and this partnership enables just that. Football is YouTube’s biggest sport; we’re host to over 300 football clubs, 37 leagues and channels from BT Sport to UEFA.”