Digital terrestrial broadcaster L’Équipe has acquired free-to-air rights to a series of French women’s and men’s national-team handball matches.
The inventory includes three matches to be played next month in the women’s edition of the Golden League tournament. This comprises live rights to the match against Denmark (on October 4) and delayed rights to matches against Montenegro (October 1) and Norway (October 3).
The Golden League is a tournament between the men’s and women’s national sides of France, Denmark, Norway and a guest country.
L’Équipe has also gained rights to France’s two friendlies against Denmark next March as part of the deal.
The broadcaster’s inventory of men’s matches comprises live rights to three qualifying fixtures for EHF Euro 2022 against Belgium (November 5), Serbia (January 9, 2021) and Greece (May 2, 2021).
L’Équipe acquired the rights directly from the Fédération Française de Handball (FFHB). The latter had been in the market for a free-to-air broadcaster for French national-team matches for well over 18 months after carving these rights out of its last renewal deal with pay-television broadcaster beIN Sports.
BeIN holds the rights to all men’s and women’s matches as part of its contract for pay-television and digital rights, which runs from 2019 to 2022. It previously had full exclusivity over French national team games.
L’Équipe will not pay production costs for its inventory as these are covered by beIN.
The DTT broadcaster has also recently acquired rights to the Ligue Nationale de Basket and American football’s NFL.