After signing a 10 year agreement with UEFA Champions League, Paramount+ was searching for a creative platform that could not only drive awareness that the Champions League was on Paramount+, but could aid growing awareness of soccer within the United States.

To accomplish both these objectives, we went against the grain of sports marketing. Instead of showcasing slick highlight packages and incredible displays of athleticism to get people into the game, we instead focused on the fans, and highlighted the incredibly unique rituals and viewing behaviors that they partake in to watch Champions League within the United States.

For a soccer fan, watching the UEFA Champions League in America is different from anywhere else in the world. Because matches start in the middle of the work day, in the middle of the work week in the States. And culturally, most Americans don’t stop everything to watch the best club soccer tournament in the world.. But there’s a not-so-secret secret club with millions of fans in the U.S. (that we wanted to grow) who do stop everything to watch. They call in sick. They second screen. They do whatever they need to do to be there on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It’s odd. It’s different. But we’re proud of it. Because Nobody Watches Like U.S. And to us, that makes them Champions too.

We set out to develop a creative platform for Paramount+’s UEFA Champions League programming that can drive awareness of the Champions League and drive new subscriptions for the streamer, while growing the presence of soccer in America.

We also uncovered that American Champions League fans have unique viewing behaviors that require next-level dedication. In order to watch the best players in the world face off, these fans had to find creative, sneaky, ingenious ways to tune into Paramount+, because games streamed in the middle of the day, in the middle of the work week.

This ultimately led to our strategy - to harness the fan experience around the Champions League and Paramount+ to create a cultural shift in sports viewing behavior, making Tuesdays and Wednesdays feel like a weekly main event, supercharging current traditions and rituals around viewing it.

From the Olympics to Monday Night Football, sports are often defined by their theme song. The UEFA Champions League is no different. When soccer fans hear the iconic anthem based on a piece written by the great composer Handel, they know they’re about to see the most beautiful version of the most beautiful game. The Champions League Anthem is the Champions League. So we knew we just had to find a way to use it. We worked with UEFA to not only license one of the most recognizable sports intro music tracks of all time, but to rewrite the lyrics to reflect an American soccer fan point of view.

With the help of “Champions” and the “Nobody Watches Like U.S.” campaign idea, Paramount+ had its most streamed UEFA Champions League Round of 16 ever, registering double-digit year-over-year growth in Average Minute Audience (AMA) from the 2023 Round of 16. Behind the momentum of the Round of 16 success, this continues to be the most-streamed UEFA Champions League season ever on Paramount+. The “Champions” film was written about in Hollywood Reporter and several soccer blogs, but soccer fan @soongtype on YouTube summed it up best when they commented “I feel seen.” And this sentiment was echoed across social media wherever “Champions” showed up.