Is this finally the long-awaited outcome of the pathetic and dramatic soap opera of TV rights in French football? In any case, this is a temporary epilogue since the failure of the Sino-Spanish broadcaster Mediapro this fall, when 80% of French football TV rights were vacant.
This Thursday, the Professional Football League and the Canal + Group announced in a press release that they had finally reached an agreement concerning the audiovisual rights of Ligue 1 Uber Eats and Ligue 2 BKT for the 2020-2021 season.
The announcement comes at the end of a board of directors that the LFP had met urgently on Thursday following the failure of its call for tenders at the beginning of the week. In fact, the group led by Vincent Bolloré will have – from the 25th day of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 scheduled for the weekend of February 14 and until the end of the season – exclusive audiovisual rights. Subscribers to the Canal + group will therefore have direct and full access to all Ligue 1 matches (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) and to eight of the ten Ligue 2 matches, the other two being broadcast on BeIN.
The LFP should therefore recover an overall amount of € 688 million against the € 1.153 billion initially planned.
In addition to the rights to these matches, Canal + will have all magazine rights during the week and at weekends. “Following the call for tenders declared unsuccessful this week, the Professional Football League and the Canal + Group are delighted to have found a global solution to display the matches of Ligue 1 Uber Eats and Ligue 2 BKT to a large audience for the 2020-2021 season, ”the joint statement said.
In addition to paying the three 56 M € (one draft this Friday, one in April, one in June) planned for lot 3, Canal will therefore just add 35 M € more plus the 3 M € to broadcast OM – PSG on Sunday evening .. The LFP should therefore recover an overall amount of € 688 million for Ligue 1 this season (€ 370 million from Canal +, € 246 million from Mediapro, € 42 million from Free and € 30 million from BeIN Sports) against € 1.153 billion initially planned. That is a decrease of about 49% compared to the promises born from the agreement with Mediapro.
But Canal +, which had started a standoff with the authorities of the LFP after the Mediapro fiasco, presents itself as the savior of French football. 80% of French football TV rights had been vacant since the failure of the Sino-Spanish broadcaster Mediapro this fall. The agreement reached between Canal and the LFP only covers the end of the 2020-21 season.
In this TV rights crisis, after suggesting that it would not participate in a new call for tenders, the encrypted channel managed on Wednesday, after an express consultation, to secure the co-broadcast with Téléfoot from the summit of Ligue 1 OM-PSG, Sunday evening at 9 p.m.
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On January 13, Canal + had already broadcast the Champions Trophy pitting the same teams, also co-broadcast with Téléfoot and which had gathered 1.4 million viewers.
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One question remains unanswered. Does this time-limited agreement put an end to the legal actions recently brought by Canal +? Bolloré’s group had contested the League’s recent call for tenders for 80% of the rights (the rest belonging to Canal). The encrypted channel believes that it has paid lot 3 much too much and was asking the League for a global call for tenders covering all the rights.
Article original de: www.leparisien.fr
