Spanish agency Mediapro has said it has no intention of sublicensing rights to Ligue 1 and will instead rely on striking carriage deals for its planned new channel for the top division of French club football, while telco Altice has unveiled a new look to its sports media offering in France.
Mediapro yesterday (Thursday) revealed further details behind its plans for a dedicated football channel open to all “premium TV operators” in France after securing the lion’s share of rights to Ligue 1 earlier this week.
The Ligue de Football Professionnel secured a 60 per cent increase in value for the domestic rights to Ligue 1 through deals with Mediapro and pay-television broadcaster beIN Sports, with the agreements ending the status of pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus as the long-time home of the competition.
The agreements see Mediapro become the new major player in Ligue 1 broadcasting, with the LFP recouping €1,153,471,723 ($1.38bn) per season for the rights or €4,613,886,892 in total for the four campaigns spanning 2020-21 to 2023-24. The current rights cycle, covering 2016-17 to 2019-20, generates a total of €748.5m per season.
Mediapro’s manager Jaume Roures yesterday confirmed that the agency will pay close to €780m per season for the lots of rights it has won, adding that it is targeting five million subscribers for its new channel within two years.
“We have no intention to resell (the rights)”, Roures said, according to the Reuters news agency. “You’ll see it will be possible to make a channel at €25 per month (for all matches).”
Roures said Mediapro would be ready to work with Canal Plus, which has been the major partner of French football since 1984, while Altice has also stated that it would be keen to co-operate with the agency.
Altice made no offer for the Ligue 1 rights and has detailed an overhaul for its pay-television unit SFR Sport. The channels under this portfolio will now be rebranded as RMC Sport 1, 2, 3 and 4, as well as RMC Sport News, from July 3.
Altice has already secured several key sports properties, including rights to club football competitions the Uefa Champions League and Europa League, as well as the English Premier League.