Playoff Round Match Telecasts and Studio Show Hosts Announced

Beginning next Tuesday, August 18, coverage of the UEFA Champions League premieres on the Fox family of television networks, including Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports Net (FSN) and Fox Sports en Español, providing an unprecedented level of live and prime-time coverage for the competition in the United States.

The world’s most prestigious club soccer tournament debuts on Fox with the Playoff Round, where 20 teams will battle over two legs to qualify for the 32-team UEFA Champions League Group Stage; see below for the Playoff Round live telecast schedule. UEFA Champions League match coverage on FSN will be available in high-definition, while HD feeds of the competition on Fox Soccer Channel will launch in February 2010 with the Round of 16.

Setting the table for match coverage, Fox Soccer Channel and FSN will simulcast UEFA Champions League Pregame, a live 30-minute studio program each Tuesday match day at 2 p.m. ET (Fox Soccer Channel only on Wednesdays). Meanwhile, UEFA Champions League Highlights will follow each match day at midnight (12 a.m. ET) on Fox Soccer Channel to recap all the day’s action.

Both of these 30-minute programs will be hosted by veteran FSC commentators Max Bretos, Warren Barton and Bobby McMahon. Bretos is Fox Soccer Channel’s lead play-by-play announcer, while Barton played in the 1997/98 UEFA Champions League as a defender with Newcastle United and currently serves as an analyst on Fox Soccer Match Day and Super Sunday +. As the lead analyst on FSC’s nightly soccer news program, Fox Soccer Report, since 2001, McMahon is regarded as one of North America’s most trusted sources for insight into the “Beautiful Game.”

“The breadth and depth of UEFA Champions League coverage available through Fox provides an unprecedented opportunity for soccer fans to immerse themselves in this prestigious competition,” said Dermot McQuarrie, senior vice president of Programming and Production for Fox Sports International. “With more match telecasts than ever before – coupled with supplemental pre-game and highlight shows – we are confident that viewers will relish this expanded access to the UEFA Champions League.”

Commentary for all UEFA Champions League matches on Fox Soccer Channel and FSN will be provided by European-based announcing teams. All live matches will kick off at 2:45 p.m. ET on Tuesdays and Wednesdays during the course of the season, with the exception of select contests originating in the Eastern European Time Zone which will begin at 12:30 p.m. ET.

Fans seeking even more coverage of Europe’s biggest annual tournament will be able to tune into UEFA Champions League Magazine, premiering every Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET on Fox Soccer Channel as well as on select FSN affiliates; check local listings.

Over the next three seasons, Fox Soccer Channel will televise one live and up to four delayed UEFA Champions League contests each match day, delivering 110 total matches per season to its nearly 35 million subscribers. FSN – reaching up to 91 million homes nationwide through its owned and affiliated regional sports networks – will televise one live contest on each of the 16 Tuesday match days per season plus select delayed games, while Fox Sports en Español will televise one live and up to four delayed UCL matches per match day, distributing 110 total contests in Spanish to its 14 million subscribers.

In addition to serving as one of the official sponsors of the UEFA Champions League, Heineken has signed on a season-long broadcast partner for Fox’s coverage of the competition.

About Fox Soccer Channel

Fox Soccer Channel offers the most comprehensive coverage of world-class soccer available in the United States, including Major League Soccer, England’s Barclays Premier League, Italy’s Serie A, Women’s Professional Soccer, the Argentine First Division and the Australian Hyundai A-League, as well as such global tournaments as the English FA Cup, FIFA Club World Cup, CONCACAF Champions League™, 2010 FIFA World Cup™ qualifiers and the 2009 CONCACAF Gold Cup™. The Official Broadcast Partner of the United States Youth Soccer Association, Fox Soccer Channel also televises the United Soccer Leagues and NCAA Division I college men’s and women’s soccer. The Nielsen-rated channel reaches more than 34 million cable and satellite households nationwide.

Fox Soccer Channel is one of 28 national and regional programming networks within Fox Networks Group, an operating unit of the News Corporation (NYSE:NWS). These broadcast, cable, satellite and telephony delivered networks reach more than half a billion U.S. television homes, and represent one of the media industry's most diverse collections of programming operations. Fox Networks Group consists of FOX Sports, Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox Cable Networks and Fox Networks Engineering & Operations. For more information, visit America’s most visited online soccer destination at foxsoccer.com.

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mPRm Public Relations
Chelsea Hettrick, 323-933-3399 ext.4261
chettrick@mprm.com
or
Fox Soccer Channel
Ben Alkaly, 310-444-8642
ben.alkaly@fox.com