With two big weeks to go before the start of the French championship, the Professional Football League (LFP) finally seems to have closed the TV rights file for the period 2024-2029. After much procrastination and cold sweat, broadcasters DAZN and beIN Sports will indeed broadcast Ligue 1 until further notice. The Qatari group having reached an agreement with the League in the last few hours.
The first sticking point after the rapid validation of the allocation of eight out of nine matches to the DAZN platform – for €400 million per year – concerned with beIN the distribution of the €100 million promised for the single match assumed on each day. Namely, according to L’Equipe, “€78.5 million for the live broadcast of its poster, €1.5 million for near-live rights (the quasi-live on the match in question) and therefore €20 million in sponsorship rights”.
Agreements limited to two or three years?
The second point of suspension concerned the duration of the commitment, which beIN Sports wanted to establish at three years minimum, with the possibility of validating the fourth and fifth years in the middle of the third broadcast season. DAZN for its part slipped in a clause to exit the lease after two years if the 1.5 million subscribers were not reached during the second season of commitment.
Finally, beIN Sports has established the slot of its priority choice – every other day – designating the Saturday 5pm poster, with possible fallback solutions on Friday 8:45pm in particular. An option subject however to the agreement of the presidents of Ligue 2 clubs for a shift of the multiplex from Saturday 7pm to Friday evening.
