UEFA is considering launching its own direct-to-consumer streaming service for the Champions League from the 2027-2031 cycle, with the idea of first testing it in a major Asian market such as India or Indonesia. The project is being discussed within UC3, the joint venture created by UEFA and the European Football Clubs -EFC- to manage the commercial rights of European competitions, and it starts from a clear logic: extracting more value from territories where the product still has room to grow in audience, consumption, and monetization.

The move also fits into an increasingly common trend in premium sport: getting closer to the fan, gaining greater control over the viewing experience, and turning that relationship into data, loyalty, and business. In the case of the Champions League, a proprietary platform would allow UEFA to distribute its flagship competition more effectively in distant markets, strengthen ties with new followers, and expand its reach beyond the traditional model of sublicensed media rights. The organization is still keeping its decision not to alter, for now, the so-called “country protection” in the league phase, while moving ahead on the technological and commercial side of the product.

NFL, MLB, and NBA have already turned streaming into a tool for expansion

The clearest case for measuring that potential is NFL Game Pass on DAZN. In the 2024-25 season, paid subscribers grew 23% year on year and free users rose 47% through Super Bowl LIX, which generated more than 95 million minutes viewed across more than 200 geographies. A year later, in 2025-26, subscriptions rose by another 24%, the Ultimate Tier increased by more than 300%, and Super Bowl LX passed 125 million minutes viewed. DAZN linked part of that growth to product improvements, broader language localization, stronger distribution, and interactive features such as FanZone, used by one in four subscribers.

MLB also offers a highly useful precedent. The league reported in June 2025 that consumption on MLB.TV was up 27% compared with the previous season, with more than 7.5 billion minutes watched by early June, and later announced that the service closed 2025 with a new annual record of 19.4 billion minutes viewed, 34% above the full-year 2024 record of 14.5 billion. At the same time, Major League Baseball -MLB- also highlighted a younger digital audience: between 2018 and 2023, the average age of the MLB.TV viewer dropped from 48 to 44, while the 18-to-24 audience grew 11% in 2023.

More direct product, more data, and greater international reach

The NBA has followed a different path, but with similarly revealing results. The league ended the 2022-23 regular season with record engagement across NBA App, NBA League Pass, and social media, including 32 billion video views and more than 13 billion on Instagram, as well as year-on-year growth of more than 10% across the broader NBA digital ecosystem and related accounts. In 2023-24, the competition reported a record season in Europe and the Middle East through NBA App, NBA League Pass, and localized accounts, surpassing one billion video views in that region for the first time and doubling the views of its local accounts year on year.

Another interesting model is MLS Season Pass, driven by Apple alongside Major League Soccer -MLS-. The product is available in more than 100 countries and regions, with no blackouts, all matches included, and exclusive content, a structure that reinforces the idea of a global, uniform offer designed to grow beyond the domestic market. For UEFA, this kind of setup has value not only because of direct revenue, but also because it offers a way to organize the Champions League’s international distribution more effectively and turn the competition into a permanent point of access for the fan, rather than simply a sequence of match nights.

New ways to increase consumption and commercial value

In other major sports properties, streaming is also already tied to business growth. Liberty Media said in 2025 that the performance of Formula 1 media rights revenues had been supported by continued growth in F1 TV subscriptions, both in the first quarter and in the second quarter and first half of the year. Without disclosing a closed subscriber figure, the group still linked business performance directly to the expansion of its direct platform.

The case of WWE does not follow exactly the same proprietary-platform model as NFL Game Pass or MLB.TV, but it still reinforces the broader idea that digital distribution expands reach and value. The company closed 2025 with 1.7094 billion dollars in revenue, up from 1.3981 billion in 2024, while adjusted EBITDA rose from 681.1 million to 896.5 million. In terms of consumption, WrestleMania 41 became the most successful event in its history and generated 1.1 billion social views over the weekend, while the debut of Raw on Netflix drew 4.9 million global views and 223 million social views on launch day. In that landscape, a potential Champions League platform would fit into an already visible trend: competitions increasingly willing to move closer to the fan in order to grow market share, audience, and commercial value.