UEFA expects the Champions League final to draw far higher UK viewing figures next week than in recent seasons, even as TNT Sport makes the match unavailable free-to-air for the first time since the competition was rebranded 34 years ago. The Paris Saint-Germain v Arsenal final will be shown on TNT Sports and HBO Max, with the streaming service now carrying the game after two years in which TNT made it free on discovery+.
The shift matters because the audience has already been building. About 1 million viewers watched the final for free on discovery+ in each of the past two seasons, while TNT’s total viewing figures for the 2024 and 2025 finals were about 2.5 million. HBO Max, which launched in the UK in March and has attracted millions of subscribers, is available in more than 10 million UK households, and the cheapest subscription costs £4.99 a month.
For fans used to a different model, the change is stark. From 2015-16 until 2022-23, the Champions League final was made available for free on YouTube by BT Sport, the UK rights holder at the time. Before that, ITV screened the final from 1992, when the European Cup was rebranded as the Champions League. Now, the game that typically pulls in the largest club football audience of the year is moving deeper behind subscription walls, even if TNT says the wider reach of HBO Max should still produce a bigger total audience.
That calculation appears to be shared in Nyon. UEFA’s commercial team is understood to be pleased with TNT’s decision because it believes the move will deliver more viewers overall, not fewer. HBO Max is also available at no extra cost with ads for Sky Sports subscribers and can be added as a paid extra through Amazon Prime Video, giving the broadcaster more routes into homes than discovery+ had. But the free-to-air route that helped make the final a national event in the UK is gone.
The reaction has been swift. Jon Trickett wrote on X that all major sporting finals should be free to watch on UK television, and said he would like to see the government take action to ensure future events like the Champions League final are accessible to as many people as possible. His criticism lands on a day when TNT’s decision is already being heavily debated, and it puts pressure back on a rights model that has steadily pushed elite football toward paid platforms.
The friction is easy to see. UEFA has privately accused TNT of breaking the spirit of a contract that says best endeavours must be made to ensure club finals are available for free, yet the broadcaster has chosen to place the final behind a subscription for the first time in the modern era. The result is a sharper commercial line around one of football’s biggest nights, and next week’s numbers will show whether the promise of a bigger audience can outweigh the loss of easy access for casual viewers.
If UEFA is right, the audience will rise despite the paywall. If it is wrong, the Champions League final may have crossed a line that is hard to reverse.
