The Ligue de Football Professionnel, the French football league, has launched a domestic rights sales process for Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, the top two divisions in the country.
The rights will run for four years, from 2016-17 to 2019-20.
The league will continue to schedule games to be broadcast over three days of the week – Friday, Saturday and Sunday – with five matches taking place at the same time on Saturday evenings.
The league has shifted kick-off times from 2pm to 3pm on Sunday afternoons, in order to enhance “international visibility,” and will fix Friday and Sunday evening games to an 8.45pm start.
A total of six packages will be on offer, and bids must be submitted between April 2-4.
Package one will include 28 first choice matches, 10 second choice games and 38 third choice matches per season plus a Saturday and Sunday evening highlights programme.
Package two will include 28 matches and a Sunday evening magazine programme while package three will include 22 matches, including 12 on a shared basis, plus three magazine programmes on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings.
Package four offers three multi-game match days (in the 19th, 37th and 38th rounds of the tournament) plus the Trophée des Champions game between the league and cup winners.
Package five includes magazine programmes from Monday to Friday while package six comprises on-demand coverage of near-live matches and magazine programmes.
The l’Equipe daily newspaper said that a reserve price for the rights had not been revealed.