Matchday 1 of the 2026-27 UEFA Champions League league phase is being played this week (Sept. 8-10), and two company names keep showing up on rights list after rights list, market after market: DAZN and Amazon Prime Video. Knowing a brand’s name is on the list tells you almost nothing, though, because what that name actually gets a fan changes completely depending on which country they open the app in, and sometimes changes again a season or two later in the same country.
Amazon Prime Video: the smallest slice, and the most durable one
In the UK, Prime Video’s Champions League package is deliberately narrow: first pick of one match every Tuesday, 17 matches across the whole season, nothing more. TNT Sports carries everything else, so Prime Video is the add-on subscription, not the default one. Standalone cost: £7.99/month on top of TNT Sports on HBO Max at £30.99/month.
In Germany, Amazon’s slice looks similar on paper, some of the Tuesday matches, but it isn’t billed as an exclusive premium pick the way the UK package is. DAZN is the default, dominant answer to “how do I watch the Champions League in Germany” (Unlimited tier, €44.99/month, every Wednesday match plus the Tuesday matches Amazon doesn’t carry), and Amazon’s games sit alongside that as a smaller, non-exclusive extra, not a distinct premium product with its own identity.
Here’s the detail worth sitting with: the UK’s Champions League rights are being rebuilt from 2027-28, when Paramount+ takes over the majority package from TNT Sports. Amazon’s own Tuesday exclusive doesn’t move at all, it runs through 2030-31 untouched. In a market where the headline broadcaster is being replaced, the smallest, least-billed piece of the puzzle is also the only one signed on for the long haul.
DAZN: the default answer in one country, someone else’s sublicense in another
In Germany, DAZN’s Champions League coverage is its own long-running rights position, the product a fan actually subscribes to for the competition, full stop.
In the US, DAZN shows up again, this time in the Spanish-language market, and the relationship is completely different. TelevisaUnivision holds the actual UEFA contract for US Spanish-language rights (through the end of 2026-27) and sublicensed the bulk of it to DAZN for two seasons: 38 matches exclusively live on DAZN, in Spanish only, with seven marquee matches (every quarterfinal, both semifinals, the final) shared between DAZN and TelevisaUnivision’s own platforms, ViX, Univision, TUDN and UniMás.
So for most of this season, a Spanish-speaking fan in the US ends up opening the same app a German fan would open for the same reason, DAZN, but for an entirely different commercial reason. In Germany, DAZN answering “where do I watch this” is the whole story. In the US Spanish-language market, it’s a two-season sublicense sitting on top of somebody else’s original deal with UEFA, invisible in the contract, not invisible on the fan’s home screen.
Even the destinations converge, on a delay
Not every thread here is about divergence. Paramount+ already streams every Champions League match in English in the US today; from 2027-28 it becomes the majority rights holder in the UK too. Two markets, two separate deals, drifting toward the same brand being the default answer in both, just a season apart. DAZN and Amazon’s stories run the opposite direction this season, same name, different role, different market. Both patterns can be true in the same competition at the same time.
Why the name on the list is the least useful fact
A dataset that only tracks which companies hold Champions League rights would say DAZN and Amazon both show up in multiple countries, and it would be correct, and it would tell a platform almost nothing useful. What actually matters, this season, in this market, is the scope: exclusive or shared, direct rights or sublicensed, the whole competition or 38 games out of it. That’s the layer that shifts practically every year, and it’s exactly the kind of continuously maintained detail Ronin Sport exists to track, not a static “who has the rights” headline. Drop us an email or get in touch to see it in action.
