The European Champions League is a very big deal in most of the world. Especially once we get down to the group stage, which boasts 32 of the best club teams in Europe — which generally means 32 of the best teams in the world.

We at The National hold deadline an additional 90 minutes, to 1:30 a.m., to get the Champions League results into the newspaper. These being eight games on six sets of Tuesdays and Wednesdays — with the first Tuesday-Wednesday set this week.

The late deadline is necessary because all eight of the games begin at 10:45 p.m. UAE time (7:45 England time, 8:45 European time) — aside from the handful played in Russia.

And this, to me, someone who grew up watching American football spread its footprint up and down (in the hours of the day) and left and right (in the days of the week), seems like a very big missed opportunity.

When you have a product with so much value … why do you have eight games kicking off at the same time?

It is fair to suggest the European Champions League is the biggest club competition — any sport — on the planet.

Pretty much no one suggests any of the half-dozen best leagues in the world are outside Europe, so when the best teams from European leagues meet … well, it’s a huge fraction of the world’s great players playing, too.

In the Middle East region, coverage is provided by beIN Sports, owned by the Qatar company that also runs the Al Jazeera news network. And for about $20 a month, here in Abu Dhabi, you can buy beIN’s football package and see all eight Champions League games on nights like these. (Provided you can stay awake until nearly 1 a.m., that is.)

The carrier has them stacked up, across eight channels, and tonight you could toggle among Barcelona vs. Roma … Chelsea vs. Maccabi Tel Aviv … Dinamo Zagreb vs. Arsenal … or any of the other five games played at exactly the same time tonight.

Why do organizers do this? Why do they limit their product to one two-hour time slot per night?

If this were the NFL, for example, the obvious tweaks would be these:

–Move six games up one hour.

–Move one game up three hours. This game would preferably be in Eastern Europe, which is an hour ahead of Paris and two hours ahead of London.

–Move one game one hour later. Preferably in England, where time at kickoff would be a not-horrible 9:45 p.m, local time.

Thus, kickoffs at 5:45, 7:45 and 9:45 (London time) or 6:45, 8:45 and 10:45 (Paris, Madrid, Berlin time) … with the Champions League inhaling tens of millions of additional viewers, many of whom would sit and watch Champions League games for six hours straight.

Just as NFL fans watch about 10 consecutive hours of American football on Sundays, thanks to the “early, middle, late” scheduling.

Why is this not happening?

This could make the Champions League even bigger than it already is, and would provide two more halftimes worth of advertising, as well as three times as many views of the sponsors’ names along the circumference of the pitch.

I need someone to explain this to me. It seems too obvious.