How to watch the Champions League: UK TV, Format & more

Jonathan Victoria • 13 Sep 2024 Guides

A new campaign and a new format awaits…

How to watch the Champions League: UK TV, Format & more

The Real Madrid trophy, better known as the Champions League, is ready to get underway for the 2024/25 campaign, dressed up nicely with fresh new teams as well as the usual suspects along with a brand-new format to spice things up.

The competition never fails to excite, and this year will be no different, so find out the information you’ll want before it all starts up, including how to watch the Champions League in the UK, the new format explained and more.

How How to watch the Champions League

Not much has changed in the way of how to watch the Champions League this season, with TNT Sports being the main broadcaster for all the games - although not the exclusive broadcaster like in previous years.

This year, Prime Video will be breaking new ground, hosting one Tuesday night fixture each round, with it always featuring an English team during the group stage and, where they have qualified, all the way through to the semi-finals.

Champions League on TNT Sports

TNT Sports remains the primary rights holder of Champions League football in the UK, so to watch the other games on a Tuesday, all Wednesday games and any other fixture past the group stage including the final, which will be exclusive to TNT Sports, you’ll need to ensure you have a valid subscription.

There are multiple ways in which you can get TNT Sports, with the first thought to go through BT. With BT, you can add TNT Sports on to your existing TV package if you are already a customer, or you can find a BT deal that packages TV and broadband together, specifically one that includes TNT Sports.

How to get TNT Sports on Sky

You don’t only have to go through BT, as Sky offers the chance to add TNT Sports onto your Sky TV package, whether you're a new or existing customer.

To do this, simply choose the Sky package you want then add it on later when given the option. Similarly, if you are already a Sky TV customer, simply edit your package and choose to add it.

It’s not just online that you can do this though. We here at Digital TV have a friendly and dedicated Sky team that you can call. They’ll be able to get you exactly what you want and sort it all out for you.

Champions League on Prime Video

Prime Video made a major move by acquiring the rights to show a number of Champions League games, with them getting first choice for Tuesday games, in particular ones featuring English teams.

They have announced five games that they will be showing during the ‘League phase’, the new name for the first stage of the competition. Those games and the dates are:

AC Milan vs Liverpool | Tuesday 17th September 2024 at 8pm
Arsenal vs PSG | Tuesday 1st October 2024
Arsenal vs Shakhtar Donetsk | Tuesday 22nd October
Liverpool vs Bayer Leverkusen | Tuesday 5th November
Manchester City vs Feyenoord | Tuesday 26th November

New Champions League format: How it works

Credit: The new UEFA Champions League format EXPLAINED 🏆 (Amazon Prime Video Sport, YouTube)

The new Champions League format is called the "Swiss Model." Instead of the traditional group stage with eight groups of four teams, there will now be an additional four teams (previously 32 teams entered at the start of each campaign) and all 36 participating teams will be placed in one big league table, with this new first round named the League Phase.

Each team will play eight matches against different opponents (four home and four away), chosen based on a system that aims to balance the difficulty level of matches.

After these eight games, the top eight teams in the table automatically qualify for the Round of 16, while teams ranked 9th to 24th will enter a knockout playoff to decide the remaining eight spots.

Once the knockout playoffs are complete and the 16 teams going through to the Round of 16 is decided, the draw for the round will commence, with teams who qualified automatically being put against a team that won in the playoff.

In short, this new system adds more matches and increases the number of teams. The idea is to make the competition more exciting by giving teams more chances to qualify, and fans more high-quality games to watch. The tournament still ends with knockout rounds, but the format change mainly affects the early stages by eliminating the old group system.

Champions League 2024/25: teams

As mentioned, the number of teams entering the competition in the League phase will be increasing to 36 teams - an additional four sides now getting the chance to compete for glory.

Here are the 36 teams entering into the League phase:

Manchester City (England)
Liverpool (England)
Arsenal (England)
Aston Villa (England)
Real Madrid (Spain)
Barcelona (Spain)
Atlético Madrid (Spain)
Girona (Spain)
Bayern Munich (Germany)
Borussia Dortmund (Germany)
Bayer Leverkusen (Germany)
VfB Stuttgart (Germany)
RB Leipzig (Germany)
Paris Saint-Germain (France)
Lille (France)
AS Monaco (France)
Stade Brestois (France)
AC Milan (Italy)
Inter Milan (Italy)
Atalanta (Italy)
Juventus (Italy)
Bologna (Italy)
Benfica (Portugal)
Sporting CP (Portugal)
Feyenoord (Netherlands)
PSV Eindhoven (Netherlands)
SK Sturm Graz (Austria)
FC Salzburg (Austria)
Club Brugge (Belgium)
Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine)
Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia)
Crvena Zvezda (Serbia)
Young Boys (Switzerland)
Celtic (Scotland)
Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia)
Sparta Praha (Czechia)

Champions League 2024/25: Matchdays

There will be eight matchdays during the League phase, with the first week being contested across three days. The following six matchdays will be competed on the standard Tuesday and Wednesday, then the last matchday will feature all 18 games played at the same time on a Wednesday.

The dates of the matchdays are as follows: