The French Football League has reached a last minute broadcast agreement for the coming season. This deal will prevent a financial crisis from arising at some clubs, but it will also lock in a lower price than originally hoped.
Two people with knowledge of the situation say that DAZN, a sports streaming service, will pay €400mn a yearly fee for the right to broadcast the majority Ligue 1 games, while Qatar’s beIN will pay €100mn a week for a single match. beIN pays more per match because it includes the most desired fixtures. The five-year deal is expected to last, but a possible break clause after the first two or three years has not been ruled out, according to sources.
French clubs avoided a financial crisis by signing a contract less than six weeks prior to the start of a season. The majority of teams depend on the domestic TV revenue for their main source of income. Some teams were unable to get bank financing without a broadcast agreement.
The €500mn amount is still well below the €1bn that the Ligue de Football Professionnel had originally aimed for, and also lower than the €582mn from the previous deal.
This is also the lowest price paid in the last 20 years for top-flight French football rights. CVC Capital Partners will share future revenue with LFP, unlike in previous years. The private equity firm paid €1.5bn to acquire a 13% stake in the new entity that controls LFP’s commercial income.
A long-running battle between Canal+ and the LFP, which was once its longtime broadcast partner after the league had previously sold their rights to other companies instead of the French group, complicated the LFP’s attempts to sell its rights.
The decline in value of French Football’s media rights, however, is the latest indication of a declining willingness of broadcasters to pay large sums of money for live sport. Serie A in Italy also renewed their TV contracts at a reduced rate, while the Premier League’s headline price increased only by 4 percent despite a 35% increase in games.
The French clubs were considering launching their own channel rather than accepting the offers from DAZN or beIN. However, this would not have provided any guaranteed revenue and the costs of setting up the channel would have been prohibitive to some clubs. According to a person familiar with the discussions, the league was pushing for a break-clause in the five-year contract to give clubs the option to continue working on the channel. Although it is not certain that the broadcasters will agree to this.
John Textor was the US owner and manager of Olympique Lyonnais. He said in a press release that the result had been disappointing, saying “signing an agreement with legacy delivery methods is looking backwards, when we need to be looking forwards.”
DAZN declined to comment. LFP was contacted to get a comment.
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