New TV Deal With Canal+ Will Not Stop Ligue 1 Hemorrhaging Money

After opting not to take part in the retendering process of the domestic TV rights for Ligue 1 and 2 in France, Canal+ will broadcast the remainder of the 2021 season.

Early last week the LFP (Ligue de Football Professional), the governing body for France’s top 2 leagues, announced that three “major international groups” had submitted bids. The bidders turned out to be Amazon, DAZN or Discovery (the owners of Eurosport) but the offering did not match the reserve target set by LFP.

The failure to reach the reserve amount only served to strengthen the position taken by Canal+ that the property was overvalued and had been for many years.

Canal+ had already handed back its sublicense to broadcast two games each weekend after the LFP’s primary deal with Mediapro imploded in late 2020.

Mediapro had committed nearly $1 billion annually for four seasons to the two leagues but failed to come anywhere close to meeting its subscription target of 4 million. After failing to make the required payments the deal was terminated with Mediapro agreeing to pay a paltry exit payment of $120 million.

Although no figures were announced it is understood that Canal+ will pay the LFP $440 million for 2019/20 – just $40 million more than its original commitment. But rather than being limited to 2 games each weekend, Canal+ will broadcast every Ligue 1 match and 8 games every week from tier 2.

With the Canal+ deal in place the domestic rights is expected to generate just over $800 million for 2020/21, around $600 million less than budget and $50 million less than the amount garnered in 2019/20.

The incremental revenue from Canal+ does little to save LFP’s face and it will not arrest the economic meltdown engulfing the French Leagues. (AFP and L’Equipe have both reported that Ligue 1 teams can expect to lose a total of $1.5 billion this season.)

The future is not bright either. The broadcasters hold all the leverage when it comes to bidding for the domestic rights from 2021-22 onwards. The patchwork deal announced last week is just the latest indication that the power has swung to the broadcasters, for the time being anyway.

Now, it is a case of keeping an eye on upcoming deals across Europe to see if meltdown spreads.

Next Up

Bundesliga

Sky and DAZN secured the domestic broadcast rights for 2021 to 2025 last summer. No figure was announced but it was accepted at the time that the new deal was slightly down on the $1.4 billion paid per season from 2017 to 2021.

Serie A

Sky, DAZN, Mediapro and Discovery all submitted bids for Italian rights but fell short of the target amount of $1.4 billion per season. Negotiations are underway with the bidders and an announcement could come in the next week. The deal for 2018-21 amounted to $1.18 billion per season.

Premier League

No specific time has been set but a deal for 2022 to 2025 will almost certainly be announced sometime this year. The present rightsholders – Sky, BT, and Amazon – are expected to bid again but the conventional wisdom is that for the second consecutive cycle domestic rights will soften by at least $200 million a season.

Last time, the domestic rights auction generated just over $2 billion a season from 2019 to 2022, down from $2.28 billion in the last cycle 2016 to 2019.

La Liga

Bidding for domestic rights from 2022-2023 onwards in Spain is expected to get underway between March and June of this year. The present contract generates $1.4 billion per season.