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BT Sport retains rights to show Champions League football until 2024 in deal worth £1.2bn

The Champions League, which was won this year by Liverpool, has lost none of its lustre - AFP
The Champions League, which was won this year by Liverpool, has lost none of its lustre - AFP

BT Sport has retained the rights to screen the Champions League after fending off improved offers from ITV and Sky for the next three seasons.

The broadcaster is set to announce it will continue to show every game live and air highlights, with sources claiming it had met Uefa's asking price for a second successive cycle.

A new deal, first disclosed on the AP newswire and subsequently confirmed by Telegraph Sport, is expected to be in the region of £1.2 billion ($1.5bn), matching the figure it paid for its 2018-2021 rights.

The offer will have delighted Uefa as experts had predicted a potential drop off after the Premier League last year saw a decline in the money raised from the sale of rights to broadcast matches in the UK.

In total BT and Sky bid £4.4bn to screen the lion's share of 200 games domestically for each season between 2019-2022. That amount falls short of the £5.1bn the Premier League netted in 2015.

However, the Champions League has lost none of its lustre for domestic broadcasters, especially after last season's all-English final.

Both Sky, which was bought last year by American telecommunications conglomerate Comcast, and ITV were understood to have tabled bids for what remains one of the most prized products in sports broadcasting.

Viewing figures have been growing steadily BT Sport, a subscription broadcaster fronted by Gary Lineker. For last summer's all-English Champions League final,  BT Sport attracted bumper audiences for the Champions League final by making it free-to-air. Combined digital and TV figures of 11.3million were estimated by the broadcaster.

Uefa last week struck a deal in the United States with CBS and Univision, who will pay a combined 140 million US dollars a season for Champions League rights from 2021 in a three-year deal. That is an increase from the 100 million US dollars in the current Turner/Univision deal.