Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has taken non-exclusive rights to the European Athletics Championships, which is taking place in Birmingham during August.
Content will be shown across 45 markets in Europe (excluding the Nordics, Poland and Russia) through a new WBD partnership with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
Running from 10 to 16 August, Birmingham 2026 is the first European Athletics Championships to be held in the UK in the competition’s 92 year-long history. During the 27th edition, a total of 13 sessions across 26 disciplines featuring 50 medal events will see the greatest track and field athletes in Europe go toe to toe in the battle for continental supremacy.
For the first time, every event – including 24 men’s, 24 women’s and two mixed relays – will stream live and on demand on HBO Max. WBD’s enhanced subscription streaming platform will harness its in-app features that have significantly boosted viewership and fan engagement at major sporting events to create immersive coverage. These include Multiview, which displays up to four concurrent live events and is used by one in five HBO Max subscribers watching live sport, and Key Moments, which enables users to seamlessly transition to the most crucial action points in a race or event stream.
WBD will use its premium linear channels to expand the reach of the competition to the widest possible audience across its available territories. This includes multi-market pay TV coverage with localised commentary on Eurosport 1 across Europe together with coverage on TNT Sports 3 in the UK and Ireland.
Trojan Paillot, senior vice president for rights, syndication and commercial development at WBD Sports Europe, said: “We have carved out a reputation as being the leader in broadcasting multi-sport events across multiple markets and languages through one unifying mission to tell every story, covering every athlete and showcasing every event live from some of the world’s greatest sporting competitions.
“Our proven track record of growing athletics audiences while delivering best-in-class viewing experiences across all platforms means we are the perfect partner to scale coverage of Birmingham 2026 to millions of fans across the continent. Hot on the heels of our successful coverage of every event at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games and less than two years to go until the Olympic Games LA2028, we are looking forward to capitalising on the momentum of athletics and are excited to broadcast one of the biggest events in the sport this summer.”
More than 1,600 world-class athletes from 48 nations are set to compete including global superstar Armand Duplantis (Sweden) as the 15-time men’s pole vault world record holder sets his sights on a fourth straight European Championships gold medal. He headlines an incredibly strong field, including fellow countryman Daniel Ståhl (Sweden) who is looking to add his first men’s European discuss title to his Olympic and World Championships gold medals; reigning women’s European 100m champion Gina Lückenkemper (Germany); and six-time European women’s sprint gold medallist Dina Asher-Smith (Great Britain).
WBD recently delivered coverage of every event at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games exclusively live across Europe for the first time, a year after it showed the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 2025 in 45 markets last summer. It will also be the only broadcaster in Europe to show every athletics event live at the Olympic Games LA2028 across Europe as part of its long-term partnership with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and European Broadcasting Union (EBU). During WBD’s coverage of its latest Olympic Games Paris 2024, athletics was the most popular sport among its audiences, topping unique viewers and hours viewed across all platforms.
