Apple has clinched U.S. rights to Formula 1, adding its live races to flagship streaming service Apple TV in the wake of Brad Pitt movie blockbuster F1: The Movie.
The 5-year agreement starts next year. Financial terms were not disclosed, but Apple has been in the lead to secure the rights for several months.
Formula 1 is announcing an exciting and innovative five-year partnership with Apple to become the sport’s exclusive U.S. broadcast partner from 2026. The new partnership brings together two global brands with a shared passion for innovation, excellence, and entertainment.
The alleged move to shutter F1TV entirely didn’t go down well with loads of people online as this deal has been brimming for about a fortnight.
That ended up not happening, with it still being available as an option in the $12.99/month plan.
At least one thing Americans can look forward to is that Apple is going to build a production and broadcast team of its own. The Sky rebroadcast can go to hell.
And all Free Practice sessions, plus a few - however few it is - races will be provided free to all.
So when it came time for F1 to choose a new streaming partner — their deal with ESPN comes to an end at the end of 2025 after eight years — they had serious conversations with both Netflix and Apple TV.
As Variety reported, Apple will pay F1 around $150 million per year, valuing the agreement at around $750 million.
The Guardian has learned that Paramount, whose subsidiary company Paramount+ owns the rights for Champions League games in the US, made the largest bid in this week’s auction and an announcement is due.
Paramount’s deal would give it every Champions League game live in the UK other than the first pick of Tuesday night matches, which was auctioned separately to the five major European markets collectively for the first time. A collective arrangement was not reached but Amazon Prime will continue to have the first pick of Tuesday games in the UK, Germany and Italy from 2027.
Amazon is understood to have beaten off competition from rival streamers, including Netflix and Disney+. Although it will have the first pick of fixtures there will be limits on how many times it can show each club.
Canal+ will show all Champions League fixtures in France, with Movistar understood to have beaten off a strong rival bid from Paramount to retain its rights in Spain.
Sky Sports on Thursday night announced it has won the rights to all 342 Europa League and Conference League matches from 2027, in another blow to TNT.
Paramount will take over UK Champions League coverage from incumbent TNT.
Wonder if 10 are interested in Australia pairing it with the A-leagues and all AFC events. A match can be aired on 10 Bold each matchday plus the Final
There’s always a section of the audience who cares about football and pretty much nothing else though. Having one EPL game weekly does not bode well for customer retention.
And remember, football inflates subscription pricing. Can’t do such anymore if you couldn’t show a lot of it.
It will have the opposite effect of driving piracy, because if you follow a UCL team, you would need four subscriptions to watch 80% of your team’s games in a season.
At least fans - those that are interested in anything but football - might be happy. TNT’s other offerings are not really that bad.
(Off-topic, but somehow TNT managed to show their offerings are incredibly barebone with all the events TNT 1 simulcast from TNT 2-4.)
For that to happen, Paramount will need to outbid Stan for the next rights contract to UEFA tournaments, which will be even more expensive given Stan currently has inherited the rights to UEFA World Cup qualifiers from Optus Sport.
Stan has a stranglehold on the UEFA rights here with the UEFA Champions League with them ever since they started up and they just added the EPL rights earlier this year
