Changes made to the Champions League due to the pandemic allowed CBS to find the perfect format to broadcast European soccer's premier tournament in the United States ahead of schedule.
Instead of playing the quarter-finals and semi-finals on the usual home-and-away format, UEFA will stage an eight-team, two-week knockout tournament in Lisbon, Portugal, culminating in the final on August 23.
“It's great to have something like this in the U.S.,” Mark DeBevoise, chief digital officer at ViacomCBS, told The Associated Press. “A single-elimination tournament makes perfect sense to this audience. Of course, there are passionate football fans, but with March Madness essentially canceled, I think people are craving something like this.”
CBS signed a three-season deal with UEFA last November but was not scheduled to start broadcasting the European club competition until 2021. But the remainder of this season's Champions League, as well as all of next season's, became available last month after Turner terminated its 2018-21 deal for exclusive English-language rights in the United States.
“The sport's audience in the United States is younger, more diverse and more active on social media,” DeBevoise said.
The tournament will be used to promote the CBS All Access digital subscription service, which will stream every match from the Champions League and second-tier Europa League, with top matches broadcast on the flagship network and CBS Sports Network.
“I think the show is made for the Internet in a way. In August it's a single-elimination tournament, which is a great and unique show,” Debevoise said. “When October comes, we'll have six or eight (group stage) matches on Tuesdays at 3 p.m. Eastern, which doesn't make sense for television.
“You can do one game, but you can't do six games. So what we're really focused on is making sure that our fans have a really great experience when they come to our offering and that it resonates with them and has the right inclusive pieces.”
Champions League coverage will begin on Aug. 7 and 8 on CBS with the four round of 16 second-leg matches that were not shown in March before the tournament was suspended due to the worsening coronavirus pandemic.
UEFA announced on Thursday that those matches will be played at the home team's stadium as usual.
Bayern are the clear favourites to reach the final after beating Chelsea 3-0 in the first leg in London in February. Manchester City beat Real Madrid 2-1, Juventus lost 1-0 to Lyon and Barcelona drew 1-1 with Napoli at the Camp Nou. Atalanta, Atletico Madrid, Leipzig and Paris Saint-Germain all reached the quarter-finals in March.
Attention will then shift to Lisbon, where an abbreviated format should allow UEFA to complete the tournament, which was originally due to finish in May.
The Champions League quarter-finals will be played in a best-of-one knockout format at the home stadiums of Benfica and Sporting Lisbon over four consecutive nights starting on August 12. The semi-finals will be played on August 18 and 19, with the final taking place at Benfica's Stadium of Light on August 23. No fans will be allowed at the matches.
CBS will not be using its own announcers for now, but will instead use a world feed of match commentary provided by UEFA. CBS is also committed to producing its own content around the matches.
“We understand the passion for sports and how discerning American fans are,” Debevoise said.
The Turner deal, along with Univision's Spanish-language rights, is reportedly worth $100 million per season. CBS and Univision will reportedly pay $140 million per year over the life of the broadcast agreement, which runs from 2021 to 2024 and includes the third-tier Europa Conference League, which starts next year.
