Thierry Henry’s Champions League focus overshadows Arsenal

The Rise of CBS Sports’ Champions League Coverage: Inside the Studio Show

Pete Radovich, the coordinating producer of the UEFA Champions League coverage on CBS Sports, is reflecting on how he came to realize that the network’s Champions League Today studio now owns the global conversation on major nights of European football.

“Thierry Henry, in no uncertain terms, says he gets asked more about CBS now than Arsenal,” Radovich grins. “He will tell you that straight up. That, to me, is wild.

“This summer, I was in a taxi in Croatia. The driver asked me where I’m from. I told him New York. He’s like, ‘Oh, you’re into sports?’. I said yes and he said ‘My favorite sports show is in the U.S.’. A taxi driver in Croatia! He’s saying ‘I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it; Thierry Henry, Kate Abdo, Micah Richards. It’s hilarious. I love that show. Have you ever seen it?’. And you just sit there and you’re like, ‘How in God’s name…?’.

“Four years ago, if you told me people outside of America would know our show, that is truly bigger than we could have ever dreamt. That’s the fun part. The hard part is staying relevant and getting better.”

The growth is reflected in numbers as well as anecdotes. CBS says their Champions League coverage garnered more than 3.5 billion video views across social media last season, the majority of which were from their Champions League Today studio show. It is anchored by Kate Abdo, the multilingual, 43-year-old British presenter, and merges insight and camaraderie with a panel comprised of the former Arsenal and Barcelona legend Henry, a Liverpool icon and Champions League winner Jamie Carragher and ex-Manchester City defender Micah Richards, a Premier League winner.

This season represents the start of a six-year contract for Paramount Global, the owner of the CBS network, to broadcast UEFA club tournaments across the CBS network and its Paramount+ streaming service in the United States. It is one of the largest broadcast contracts in the sport, worth $1.5 billion (£1.15bn) across six years. Paramount beat competition from Amazon to keep the UEFA competitions, including the Europa League and Conference League. David Berson, the president and CEO of CBS Sports, says the property is now considered one of the network’s “marquee assets”.

“We’re known for the NFL, Super Bowls, NBA Final Fours and the Masters and so on. The fact that we now put our soccer portfolio with the UEFA Champions League in that same discussion, that’s thrilling for us. It’s different. It’s exciting. It’s growing. It’s young-skewing (the average age of soccer viewers on Paramount+ is 37). It’s moved into that upper echelon of properties that help define who we are.”