How to watch Champions League without cable

If you live in the United States, find out how to watch Champions League without cable.

The UEFA Champions League is one of the most popular soccer tournaments on the planet. Arguably the top club competition in the sport, the Champions League involves the best teams from around Europe. It is the only meaningful tournament that regularly pits global iconic clubs such as Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich, and Liverpool against each other.

Here in the United States, the Champions League has been featured on quite a few channels over the years. Although ESPN, FOX Sports and even TNT had their turn to televise these matches in the U.S., CBS Sports and the Univision networks currently have the rights.

Originally Turner Sports had agreed to the U.S. English-language rights through the end of the 2020/21 season, but due to scheduling being pushed back because of the coronavirus, Turner Sports (and Bleacher Report Live) didn’t complete the season and returned the rights to UEFA who subsequently sold them to CBS Sports earlier than expected.

When FOX Sports and ESPN had the rights to the Champions League, most of the games were on television. But with CBS Sports only airing three of 11 games for the remainder of the 19/20 Champions League season, the indication is that most games won’t be available on television in future seasons.

However, every single UEFA Champions League and Europa League game is available on Paramount+, the network’s streaming service. Paramount+ is just six bucks per month and features a ton of entertainment and news programming in addition to sports.

For Spanish viewers, all matches are aired on Univision’s network of channels. These networks consist of Univision, Galavision, UniMas, and TUDN. Some of the games won’t be televised. For those, they’ll be shown on TUDNxtra, the Spanish-language streaming site.

With these Champions League matches available across multiple platforms, you do not have to shell out the big bucks for cable TV access. As many cable/satellite providers will cost $100+ per month, there are plenty of other options for sports fans. Multi-channel streaming services such as FuboTV are a great option for people that want to watch multiple different soccer competitions around the world.

FuboTV Latino plan starts at just $29.99, and will give you access to all of the Champions League matches including the ones on TUDNxtra.

CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus recently claimed that the sudden acquisition of the remaining 19/20 Champions League fixtures and cramped scheduling forced the network to air these matches mostly on the Paramount+ service. However, this will most likely change for the 2020/21 Champions League season.

“When our primary deal kicks in, the original deal (for 2021/22 through 2023/24), there’ll be more Champions League games on broadcast television than ever before, including the final,” said McManus.

SEE MORE: Schedule of UEFA Champions League games on US TV and streaming

“For the 2020/21 season, we’re still working it out with our stations and affiliates. We’re going to try to get some good broadcast exposure, but it’s pretty close schedule-wise for schedules that have been put in place for a long time, and we’ve got a lot of other sports conflicts whether it’s golf or other things.”

Either choosing the Paramount+ route or streaming services such as FuboTV, soccer fans have significantly cheaper options when trying to access their favorite competitions.