The ongoing fight for Ligue 1

The bidding war to attain the next round of rights to the French professional League Ligue 1 is looming around the corner, and the drama has already kicked off with a back and forth dispute between France’s pay TV giant Canal+ and the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP), as the pair trade accusations in the French press.

Last month LFP president Vincent Labrune told French sports paper LÉquipe he had a set an optimistic target of €1 billion for the national and international rights to Ligue 1 for the 2024-28 seasons, with bidding expected to take place in September.

Labrune said that reaching such a goal would require a significant uptick in proceeds from the sale of international rights as the domestic rights situation was “complicated” because “the major player, Canal+, does not want to take part”.

It seems from Labrune’s perspective the wound may still be fresh for Canal+, after several legal cases involving the French sports organisation including its court loss to beIN Sports last year which forced the pay TV operator to honour its contract with beIN, involving an agreement to pay €332 million a year to broadcast two matches per match-day, sublicensed from beIN.

In response to Labrune comments Canal+ boss Maxime Saada said that “nothing surprises” him, including the LFP’s “obsession” with reaching €1 billion.

Though, off the back of Labrune’s comment that Canal+ would not participate in the new round of bidding, Saada said that this had, in fact, “really surprised” him, given that the pay TV operator had not communicated any such intention.

Saada said that the combination of Labrune’s confidence of reaching €1 billion combined with his statement that Canal+ would not participate in the auction made him wonder “if there isn’t an agreement with a distributor or platform” already in place.

Although Canal’s non-participation in the auction has been denied by Saada, if leading platforms like Canal+ do make such a move due to increasingly expensive deals where there is no exclusivity and are simply not worth the costs, who’s to say other providers will not follow suit? Rights inflation could leave the premium sports market vulnerable to a crash.

Omdia’s latest report of global media rights values of men’s national leagues in 2023 showed Ligue 1 valued at under US$1b, less than Serie A, the Bundesliga and the Premier League.

At the New Market Europe (NEM) in Dubrovnik last month, Dimitris Michalakis, executive director of Deutsche Telekom-owned Greek pay TV operator Cosmote TV urged that “we cannot sustain these levels of spending anymore for sport rights”.

During a Deutsche Telekom keynote session, Michalakis said the rising costs for sports rights is “not making any money for anybody.” He explained the sports market is becoming increasingly more expensive because of growing competition, with streamers also joining the fight for sports rights.

Ligue 1 is an example of this after the league sold its rights to Spanish broadcaster Mediapro during the previous rights auction and was subsequently forced to take them back. The rights were subsequently sold at a knock-down price to Amazon, leading to a legal dispute with Canal+, which had paid much more for a smaller tranche of second-tier rights.

However, Amazon Prime Video has seemingly also come out the €250 million deal with the Ligue 1 with more losses than gains, as well as its Le Pass Ligue 1 subscribers. The global streamer raised the price of its French football offering Le Pass Ligue 1 to €14.99 per month or €99 per season ahead of the 2023-2024 season. The Amazon exclusive offering launched in 2021 for a supplementary charge of €12.99 a month, with access of up to eight matches per match-day.

However, From the 2023-2024 season, Prime Video will broadcast only seven out of the nine Ligue 1 matches on the Le Pass Ligue 1 channel. The price boost means Amazon’s Ligue 1 subscribers will essentially be paying more money for fewer matches. With Amazon subscribers paying more money for simply less, consequently it will ultimately lead to cutting their subscription spend and a rise in piracy.

The fight for Ligue 1 rights will continue, but with the rising prices for sports rights and deals which leave providers like Canal+ or Amazon more out of pocket to begin with, it seems no one really comes out on top.