LONDON (Reuters) - Shares in BSkyB rose 1.5 percent at the opening on Tuesday after the UK pay-TV operator won the right to show the majority of Champions League football matches from 2009 to 2012.

The European governing body, UEFA, said BSkyB had emerged as the clear winner for a number of rights packages including exclusive coverage of all live matches and highlights on a Tuesday and all games on a Wednesday with the exception of the first-choice fixture.

UEFA said it had received a number of offers for the remaining rights and it had invited a second round of bidding. The BBC and ITV could be expected to bid for those games.

BSkyB said the win would result in more live Champions League matches than ever before.

Under the agreement, Sky will have exclusive coverage of one leg from each semi-final and shared live coverage of the Champions League final and the UEFA Super Cup, which pits the winners of the previous season's Champions League and UEFA Cup against each other.

"We have secured an excellent rights package at a price which we believe reflects their value to our customers and which recognises the increasingly attractiveness of this competition to our business," Jeremy Darroch, chief executive of BSkyB, said in a statement.

Under the current deal, which runs until the end of the 2008-09 season, Sky Sports shows up to 14 exclusively live matches a week at the group stage, with two live matches on free-to-air broadcaster ITV.

Sky also streams UEFA Champions League games via broadband and offers a clips service via mobile.

(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Quentin Bryar)