La Ligue Nationale de Basket, the French basketball league, plans to cut short its current domestic rights deal with pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus at the end of this season and seek a new deal for next season and beyond.
The current four-year deal, from 2009-10 to 2012-13, gives it the option to terminate the agreement at the end of the third season. The league must inform Canal Plus by March 31 if it intends to do so.
“We are sending this letter [to end the partnership],” the league’s president Alain Béral told l’Equipe. Béral said he wants “more visibility and not just money” for the league. “The ideal scenario would be to have the bulk of the games on a pay-television channel… and the others on a free-to-air channel,” he said.
The rights from the start of the 2012-13 season will be split into four packages. The first package will contain the bulk of the Pro A, a magazine and probably national team matches. The second package would offer highlights of the Pro A league and the third package would offer highlights of the Pro B league. The fourth package would offer coverage of the annual league all-star game.
Canal Plus currently pays €4 million ($5.3 million) per year for the rights for the Pro A and Pro B leagues, the top two divisions.
Last month, Le Parisien reported that Béral had held discussions with public-service broadcaster France Télévisions and pay-television broadcaster Al Jazeera about the rights.