What the new Champions League rights deal means

Top football clubs are celebrating a huge TV windfall after BT Sport paid almost £900 million to secure the exclusive UK rights for all live Champions League and Europa League matches.
What is now at stake for finishing in the top four places in the Premier League is frankly enormous.
England's Champions League clubs will get a £25m-a-season windfall thanks to BT Sport's remarkable entry into the European football broadcasting market with further money on offer.
The company won the rights to show every Champions League and Europa League game for three seasons from 2015, massively outbidding Sky and ITV, who had jointly televised the tournament for over 20 years.

With ITV relinquishing its Champions League rights, viewers face the prospect of having to pay to watch a large majority of the action, but the top clubs in England will not be the ones complaining.
The deal comes just a few months into the Premier League’s £5 billion TV contract, a figure boosted by BT entering the market to challenge Sky, paying £738m over three years to screen 38 live Premier League games per season.
So what does it mean exactly for the clubs in England's top flight?
The vast pot of gold increases the importance for leading clubs of qualifying for the Champions League and will add to the pressure on those competing year-in year-out for a place in the Premier League’s top four.

It will likely mean that many clubs with prospects of reaching Europe's elite competition will view the domestic cup competitions as even less important - if that is possible in some cases.
Equally, international games will be seen as an even greater distraction from what is perceived as important.
BT’s Champions League coup was described as a landmark deal by Dan Jones, lead partner of the Deloitte Sports Business Group, and the chairmen of England's top clubs will be lauding it more privately.
"It shows the seriousness of BT’s intent as a football broadcaster," he said. "Others have bought bits of Premier League rights before but this is very different."
To further put the figures into context, the £299m per season BT Sport are paying is more than twice the £133m spent jointly by ITV and Sky under the current contract.
What will this mean? Well it will, of course, further enrich the elite clubs.
Chelsea made £60m from winning the Champions League in 2012 but the day when the winner scoops £100m appears to be edging ever closer.
It comes as another body blow for sports fans with only free-to-air channels, but another fillip for the so-called big clubs.