Viaplay Group on February 20, 2026, announced it had secured all broadcast rights to the English Football League (EFL) Championship across every Nordic market in a new multi-year agreement. The deal, which extends until 2028, guarantees that the Viaplay streaming platform will broadcast every single Championship match live - including the Play-Off Semi-Finals and the Play-Off Final at Wembley Stadium. It is the latest step in a steady accumulation of English football rights by the Nordic media group, building on an already substantial portfolio that spans the Premier League, FA Cup, Carabao Cup, and selected League One and League Two games.

The EFL Championship is Europe's fourth most-watched football division. Its 24 clubs attract millions of supporters across the continent each season, and its promotion mechanics give it a tension that few other leagues can replicate. Two clubs earn automatic promotion to the Premier League each year, while a third must navigate the high-stakes Play-Off Final - described in the announcement as "one of world football's most valuable fixtures." Among the clubs competing in the Championship are teams with strong Nordic followings: Middlesbrough, Coventry City, Hull City, Queens Park Rangers, Stoke City, Southampton, Leicester City, and Millwall all feature in the league's current cycle.

Full coverage, including every Play-Off match

The scope of the new agreement is broad. Unlike some broadcast deals that carve out certain fixtures for rival platforms or free-to-air broadcasters, Viaplay Group's arrangement with the EFL covers every match during the regular season, as well as the Play-Off Semi-Finals and the Wembley showpiece. Matches on Viaplay will feature English-language commentary as standard, with selected fixtures also receiving local-language commentary for Nordic audiences.

The geographic scope covers Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden - the full set of Nordic countries where Viaplay operates its streaming service. Viaplay Group also operates in the Netherlands and distributes its branded content internationally through its Viaplay Select concept, though the EFL deal specifically targets the Nordic region.

According to Peter Nørrelund, Viaplay Group EVP and Chief Sports and Business Development Officer: "The passion and drama of English football are simply unmatched. The historic clubs, the intensity of every match, and the unpredictable storylines captivate fans across the world, and certainly here in the Nordics. By securing all broadcast rights to the EFL Championship, we can continue delivering outstanding value and world-class entertainment. With the Premier League, FA Cup, Carabao Cup and now all Championship-matches firmly on our platform for years to come, Viaplay is unquestionably the home of English football in the Nordics."

Ben Wright, EFL Chief Commercial Officer, offered the league's perspective on the partnership: "The EFL sits proudly at the heart of English football, bringing unrivalled drama, authenticity and passion across the full breadth of our competitions. With the support of our partners, we have been able to significantly grow the League's global footprint and fanbase over recent years, and look forward to working more closely with the team at Viaplay Group to give supporters in the Nordics the opportunity to watch every twist and turn."

A widening English football portfolio

The EFL deal does not exist in isolation. It fits within a sustained effort by Viaplay Group to consolidate English football rights across the Nordic region into a single platform. Premier League coverage - the most commercially valuable football property in the world - already sits on Viaplay in the Nordics. The FA Cup and Carabao Cup are similarly exclusive to the platform. Adding complete Championship coverage closes a potential gap that might have sent fans searching elsewhere for second-tier English football.

The Championship's drama is a significant factor in its commercial value. The division functions as a revolving door between English football's top two tiers. Clubs such as Southampton and Leicester City have in recent seasons bounced between the Championship and the Premier League, bringing established Premier League audiences back into the second division. That cross-pollination of fan bases makes Championship rights particularly attractive for a platform like Viaplay that already holds Premier League inventory - the same viewer may watch both competitions across the season.

The deal also reinforces Viaplay Group's infrastructure investments. In July 2025, Viaplay Group acquired the remaining 50% stake in Allente Group - the Nordic satellite television provider - from Telenor for SEK 1.1 billion ($110 million), consolidating control over a distribution network that serves Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. With Allente generating SEK 6.5 billion in revenues during 2024 and contributing EBITDA of SEK 996 million for the year, the combined entity gives Viaplay Group tighter control over how content reaches Nordic households - through satellite, cable, and the Viaplay streaming application simultaneously.

Earlier, in July 2025, Titan Operating System announced that all 2025 Philips TVs would carry a dedicated Viaplay-branded hotkey on their remote controls, covering retail channels in the Nordics and the Netherlands. That hardware-level integration reduces the steps between a viewer and Viaplay's content. Combined with the Allente acquisition and now the expanded EFL rights package, Viaplay Group is building a vertical stack that stretches from satellite distribution down to the remote control button.

Streaming rights and the advertising landscape

The commercial significance of securing exclusive live sports rights extends beyond subscription revenue. For marketers and advertising technology professionals, the concentration of premium live sports inventory on a single streaming platform in the Nordic region has direct implications for campaign planning and media buying.

Connected TV advertising's share of media budgets is projected to double from 14% in 2023 to 28% in 2025, according to industry data. Live sports remain among the most resilient environments for advertising, commanding premium rates because of their near-universal live-viewing behaviour - audiences do not skip sport in the way they skip drama or entertainment. That dynamic is well documented across markets, and the Nordic region is no exception.

The EFL Championship, with its 24 clubs and a schedule running from August through May each year, generates a large volume of live inventory. Every match is a potential advertising context, and the Play-Off period in May compresses drama into a short window that historically attracts elevated viewership. Live sports advertising technology has advanced substantially, with programmatic platforms now capable of real-time targeting during specific game moments - a development that increases the value of a comprehensive rights package like the one Viaplay has assembled.

Sports streaming advertising has seen substantial growth across platforms, with FanDuel Sports Network recording a 25% year-over-year increase in total impressions served through Magnite's SpringServe platform in 2025. That trajectory indicates that live sports inventory on streaming platforms is not merely displacing linear television audiences - it is generating new measurement and monetization possibilities that linear broadcasts cannot easily replicate.

The shift is also structural. Industry research has highlighted that marketing mix models have historically underweighted connected TV relative to linear television, partly because attribution methodologies were developed for broadcast environments. As streaming platforms accumulate exclusive live sports rights, and as measurement technology catches up, the advertising case for premium sports streaming inventory grows stronger.

Viaplay Group's decision to secure all Championship rights - rather than a package covering selected matches - maximises the inventory available on the platform throughout the English football season. From a programmatic advertising standpoint, complete rights packages are preferable to partial ones, because they allow for consistent audience targeting and frequency management across an entire competition rather than a fragmented subset of fixtures.

The EFL's global rights strategy

The announcement reflects the EFL's own priorities as much as Viaplay's. According to Ben Wright, the league has "significantly grown the League's global footprint and fanbase over recent years" through its international broadcast partnerships. The Nordics represent a mature market for English football rights, with fan interest in Championship clubs running alongside the historically stronger pull of the Premier League.

The EFL Championship's 24-club structure produces a large number of matches each season - more than 550 regular-season fixtures before Play-Offs are counted. That volume makes it attractive for a streaming platform that needs to justify subscription fees through content depth rather than individual marquee events. Viaplay's existing Premier League deal provides the marquee fixtures; the Championship deal provides the supporting architecture of weekly live football across nine months.

For Nordic subscribers who follow clubs that move between the Premier League and the Championship - Southampton, Leicester City, and others have recently experienced exactly that - the deal removes the risk of losing access to their club when it drops a division. That continuity of coverage has subscriber-retention value, independent of its advertising inventory implications.

Viaplay Group's market position

Viaplay Group is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm under the ticker VPLAY B and describes itself as the Nordic region's leading entertainment provider. Beyond sports, the company operates TV channels across most of its markets and commercial radio stations in Norway and Sweden. Allente, following Viaplay's full acquisition in 2025, strengthens the group's distribution position across the Nordic media landscape.

The streaming service is available in every Nordic country as well as the Netherlands, while the Viaplay Select branded content concept has been added to partner platforms globally. The group's long-term EBITDA margin guidance, updated at the time of the Allente acquisition announcement, targets double-digit margins by 2028 - the same year the new EFL Championship rights deal concludes.

The alignment of that timeline is notable. By 2028, Viaplay Group will need to renegotiate both its Allente financing arrangements and, presumably, its EFL Championship rights. The current deal gives the platform three further seasons of complete Championship coverage: 2025-26 (currently under way), 2026-27, and 2027-28. That span covers a period during which connected TV advertising markets across Europe are expected to continue growing, providing a window to build both subscriber numbers and advertising revenue around the English football inventory.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Viaplay Group, the Nordic streaming and media company listed on Nasdaq Stockholm (VPLAY B), and the English Football League (EFL), represented in the announcement by Viaplay Group EVP Peter Nørrelund and EFL Chief Commercial Officer Ben Wright.

What: Viaplay Group secured all broadcast rights to the EFL Championship across every Nordic market in a new multi-year deal. The agreement covers every regular-season match, the Play-Off Semi-Finals, and the Play-Off Final at Wembley Stadium. Matches will be broadcast with English commentary, with local-language commentary available for selected fixtures. The deal adds to Viaplay's existing English football portfolio, which includes the Premier League, FA Cup, Carabao Cup, and selected League One and League Two matches.

When: The announcement was made on February 20, 2026. The rights run until 2028, covering the remaining portion of the 2025-26 season and the full 2026-27 and 2027-28 campaigns.

Where: The deal covers all Nordic markets where Viaplay operates its streaming service: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Matches will be distributed via the Viaplay streaming platform and through Allente's satellite and broadband distribution network.

Why: Viaplay Group is consolidating English football rights into a single platform in the Nordics, removing the risk that subscribers might need to look elsewhere for Championship coverage alongside their Premier League access. The EFL Championship is Europe's fourth most-watched football division, producing more than 550 regular-season fixtures per season. For Viaplay, complete rights coverage maximises both subscription retention - particularly for fans of clubs that move between the Premier League and the Championship - and the live sports advertising inventory available on the platform across the nine-month season.

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