On Sunday’s Grandes Guilles du Sport on RMC, Cyril Linnett, former sports director of Canal+, expressed three reasons for his disappointment about Ligue 1’s TV rights while negotiations are still ongoing for the 2024-2028 period. LFP and broadcasters.
It is difficult to know who will be the next broadcaster(s) of the French football championship from next season. If the president of the LFP, Vincent Lebrun, had aimed for one billion euros (international rights included), he has revised his ambitions downwards. A call for tenders launched this autumn was unsuccessful. The league now hopes to get at least 800 million euros after over-the-counter negotiations with broadcasters (and are still ongoing).
>> Ligue 1 TV rights: DAZN in pole position, canal still far away… Where are the negotiations?
For Cyril Linnet, who is well versed in these issues, having been head of the Canal+ sports department between 2008 and 2015, there are three main reasons to be concerned about this issue and therefore the future of French football. The first is the absence of suspense for the champion title: “We know the champion before the start of the season, lamented the former journalist of the historic broadcaster of Ligue 1, thinking about PSG, on Sunday morning in the Grandes Guilles du Sport. In sports, emotions and suspense are what count. There is no No. There is no excitement around the title of champion of France. The production of 10-15 years ago is less good.”
“Not only is the product less good, but there are fewer people in the store”
Cyril Lynette also believes that L1 is “less visible than before.” “During my time, matches had 2.5/3 million viewers. Today, the audience is fragmented. The league has turned its back on its main broadcaster (Canal+), which is the largest audience base. Overall ‘fragmentation’ of broadcasting compared to 10-15 years ago The audience has split by five or even ten. So not only is the product less good, but there are fewer people in the store.”
Still cause for hope
Finally, Cyril Linnett finally put forward a third reason to be pessimistic about the league, the broadcasters’ strategy that has changed since the Canal+ era: “Today, operators share rights. Amazon is losing money. Prime Video is losing money, Disney is losing money. is… worldwide, everyone is losing money and trying to lose as little as possible by collecting offers and distributing them among themselves instead of putting it to fortune. So I don’t see why Ligue 1 would be an exception to this global phenomenon.”
Despite this bleak picture, Cyril Lynette has reason to hope for the LFP which always manages, in his view, to “land on its feet”. “He is shrewd and sometimes benefits from political support,” suggests the journalist who anticipates a possible arrangement with the Qataris. “With relations with Qatar, when we talk about rights abroad, we can probably imagine that QSI pays more for international rights to be able to find a common solution,” concluded Cyril Lynette.
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