AP
NOS . News••modified
Paramount will pay $1.5 billion for the right to broadcast the Champions League in the United States. The company has outdone Amazon with this offer, according to a US media report.
The rights are valid for the next six years. This brings the costs of broadcasting the football successes of the major European clubs to about 250 million dollars a year.
Under the previous contract, Paramount paid $100 million annually. The sharply rising costs show that European football is growing in popularity on the other side of the Atlantic. In May, for example, 2.8 million Americans watched Real Madrid beat Liverpool in the Champions League final.
This still dwarfs American football. This year, about 100 million people, mostly Americans, watched the most important game of American football, the Super Bowl.
Eredivisie is out of the picture
The popularity also surfaced at the end of last year when rival Comcast paid $2.5 billion for broadcast rights to the Premier League.
The Dutch Eredivisie could count on less interest from US media companies. ESPN held the US rights until last season. But the US sports media company has not renewed its contract for this season, it told viewers over the weekend via Twitter.
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