Telemundo isn’t leaving the field after the World Cup. The NBCUniversal-owned network has secured exclusive U.S. Spanish-language broadcast rights to all UEFA men’s club competitions — Champions League, Europa League, Conference League, Super Cup, and Youth League — under a three-season deal that kicks off with the 2027-28 campaign.
Matches will be distributed across the Telemundo broadcast network, Universo, Peacock, and Telemundo Deportes Ahora, the company’s free ad-supported streaming channel. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The announcement landed Sunday, as the 2026 FIFA World Cup drew to a close — a tournament that shattered viewership records for the network and left competitors staring at the scoreboard. Through the semifinals, Telemundo’s World Cup coverage averaged a total audience of 6 million, a 147% increase over the same stage in 2022. A record 50 million watched the U.S. round-of-16 match across all broadcasters, making it the most-watched non-NFL sporting event this century, according to U.S. Soccer. Even after the American run ended, 11.4 million tuned in to Telemundo and Peacock for Argentina’s semifinal win over England — the most-watched semifinal in Spanish-language media history.
Cesar Conde, chairman of NBCUniversal News Group, framed the World Cup as a revelation rather than a creation. “The World Cup didn’t really create an American soccer audience; it revealed it,” he said. Conde noted that fans increasingly choose coverage based on authenticity rather than language, with roughly 20% of Telemundo’s World Cup viewers identifying English as their primary language.
Luis Fernández, chairman of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, was more blunt about the strategy: “live TV, live TV, live TV.” He called the Champions League the natural next step. “If you ask what is the most important franchise brand sports rights in football and soccer, there are only two names: World Cup for the national teams and Champions League for the most important clubs in the world.”
The rights are currently held by TelevisaUnivision, which sublicenses a package of games to DAZN. That arrangement terminates after the upcoming season. English-language rights remain with CBS/Paramount through 2029-30 — meaning both the English and Spanish deals will expire simultaneously, potentially allowing UEFA to bundle them in the next U.S. rights auction.
UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin, who also chairs UC3 — the body that sells UEFA’s media rights globally through agency Relevent — said the agreement “reflects both the strength of our competitions and the passion of Spanish-speaking fans in the United States.”
The UEFA deal adds to a Telemundo soccer portfolio that already includes the Premier League, Liga MX clubs Guadalajara, FC Juárez, and Tigres UANL, U.S. men’s and women’s national team matches, and Olympic football. Just last week the network announced a deal for more than 100 Bundesliga matches per season.
That’s a full plate. But if the World Cup ratings proved anything, it’s that the appetite is there — and Telemundo is loading up at the buffet line while the rest of the cafeteria is still reading the menu.
