Days after facing public scrutiny, BBC signs multi-year broadcasting deal with European Athletics Championships

By Soumik Bhattacharya

Modified Jun 04, 2024 20:18 GMT

The 2024 edition of the European Athletics Championships is all set to be aired across the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). This comes right after the UK-based broadcasting giant struck a deal with the European public media alliance, European Broadcasting Union, to broadcast the Championships until 2027.

Just a few days ago, fans across Europe were shocked to learn that BBC was yet to acquire the rights to the 2026 European Championships. However, with the deal going through on Tuesday, fans can breathe a sigh of relief and catch all the live events from the tournament for free.

Along with the 2026 edition of the Championships in Rome, the deal allows the BBC to broadcast the Europan Athletics Indoor Championships scheduled for 2025 and 2027 as well. In addition, the European Athletics Cross Country Championships will also be broadcast on BBC for the following four years, until 2027.

Speaking about this new deal between BBC and the European Broadcasting Union, Philip Bernie (Director of BBC Sport) opened up about the importance of this deal for both the company and the audiences. He stated in a statement:

"Adding the European Athletics Championships to our athletics portfolio is great news for audiences, who get to watch the best athletes in the world regularly on the BBC. The European Athletic Championships in Rome promises to be a high class event, and we can’t wait to see how Team GB performs in the build up to the Paris Olympic Games which will be live on the BBC later this summer."

Numerous stars are set to feature at the 2024 European Athletics Championships in Rome

With the 2024 edition of the Championships (June 7-12) just a few days away, the entry lists for the tournament have been released. Nine World Championships gold medalists will feature in the biennial event in Rome.

Mondo Duplantis, the two-time World Championships gold medalist, will lead the way in the pole vault event. The Swedish athlete will look to make it three gold medals in a row in this mega event after emerging victorious in the discipline in both 2018 and 2022.

Various other prominent World Championship medalists that are set to feature at the European Athletics Championships in Rome include Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Femke Bol, Gianmarco Tamberi, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, etc.

For many European athletes, including Marcell Jacobs, the European Athletics Championships 2024 will be a critical point in time to earn a spot in the year's biggest sporting event- the Olympics, which take place in Paris the following month.