The national associations, their affiliated organisations or clubs market the commercial rights to the first three qualifying phases.
The 2009 final attracted an audience of 109 million people around the world, a record number for the competition, and replaced the Super Bowl as the most-watched annual sports event.
The European Commission raised objections against the joint sale of media rights in 1998 and on 1 February 1999, initied its investigation into the joint selling by UEFA of the TV rights because UEFA notified the arrangement seeking for negative clearance, or respectively an exemption decision Art.
[4] The Commission issued a statement of objections on 18 July 2001, which stated that the notified joint selling arrangement relating to the sale of the television broadcasting rights infringed Article 81 of the Treaty and Article 53 of the EEA Agreement and should be improved to ensure that european sports fans can benefit from a wider coverage.
Main concerns raised by the European Commission do not relate to the central marketing of rights as such by UEFA, but rather to the policy of joint selling of free-TV and pay-TV rights combined with exclusivity for a period lasting several years had highly anticompetitive effect by foreclosing television markets and ultimately limiting television coverage of those events for consumers, an important effect on the structure of the TV broadcasting markets since football is in most countries the driving force not only for the development of pay-TV services but it is also an essential programme item for free TV broadcasters.
The clubs and possibly other players such as regional television channels or small companies, internet content providers and UMTS operators would be happy to exploit these rights.
[6] The Commission, therefore, called on UEFA to submit constructive proposals in order to guarantee open access to television coverage of football.