The French football league governing body, LFP, said that it was unable to award the lots of Ligue 1 broadcasting rights returned by Mediapro in December. Mediapro's French subsidiary was forced to hand back the rights after financial difficulties. Its Telefoot channel, airing most of the Ligue 1 football games, is continuing to operate while the LFP is in the process of finding a new taker. Amazon, Discovery and DAZN have come forward with bids to acquire the rights, however the reserve price was not met and the sale was terminated unsuccessfully by the LFP.
Canal Plus and beIN Sports have not placed bids, as they are opposing the LFP’s decision to award the rights returned by Mediapro without extending the sale process to all the lots auctioned in 2018. At the time, strong competition pushed bids to a record high. BeIN Sports secured one of the seven packages on offer while Iliad acquired rights to near-live highlights for the 2020-2024 period. Since then, BeIN Sports agreed a sub-licensing deal for its package with Canal Plus, which covers 28 of the 38 best Ligue 1 games in each season.
According to the French press, Canal Plus is fighting the LFP on two fronts as the broadcaster has started legal proceedings and has also made a complaint to the French competition authority. These actions are weakening LFP’s position in selling the rights returned by Mediapro, due to increased uncertainty. Given the current crisis engulfing French football, the sale is expected to bring substantially less than the record price paid in 2018 and Canal Plus is arguing that this would give the new taker an unfair competitive advantage over the other players in the 2018 auction.
In related news, Iliad announced that its subsidiary Free will continue to make available its Ligue 1 content package based on near-live highlights without charge to all users for the rest of the current season. Named ‘Free Ligue 1 Uber Eats’, the service was launched in August and now counts several hundred thousand viewers each match day.
