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Ligue 1 has been struggling with a crisis with TV money for years. This results in massive financial cuts for all French clubs and some clubs are struggling to survive. In this article, we analyze how the massive loss of TV revenue could have occurred, what impact this has on French football, and what solutions it is developing to counteract the cuts.
How a broken TV deal sparked Ligue 1’s financial meltdown
In France, the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) is responsible for organizing Ligue 1. In order to market TV law, she founded a subsidiary company (LFP Media), which is responsible for marketing. For decades, LFP Media was a well-rehearsed team with the broadcaster Canal Plus, which has bid for TV rights for every season since 1984. This long-standing business relationship ended in disaster in 2020. At the end of 2020, a new business relationship between LFP and Mediapro, which had only begun a few months ago, began. Mediapro was a Spanish company that secured the TV rights in France for the 2020/21 season for 814 million euros. Mediapro is also insolvent due to the Corona crisis. Ligue 1 and its clubs are thus missing out on their most important source of income, while they are losing further income such as ticket revenue due to Corona. In times of need to quickly raise as much money as possible for its clubs, the LFP tries to find new partners. They sell the rights to 8 games per matchday to Amazon Prime Video for 250 million euros. Shortly before, Canal Plus secures the rights to two games for 332 million euros from BeIn Sports with a sublicense. This means they pay 30% more for just a quarter of the games, which leads to great resentment at Canal Plus. The latter then announces that it will no longer bid for Ligue 1 TV rights and, together with BeIn Sports, is taking legal action against the league with claims for damages amounting to 660 million euros.
DAZN and BeIn Sports are once again securing the rights for the new period of rights allocation. Initially, no provider offered the rights in 2024-2029, as the LFP hoped for 800 million euros per season. In the end, DAZN paid 400 million euros and BeIn Sports 100 million euros per season for the rights. This is already a massive disruption and represents an extreme loss for the clubs compared to previous years. However, in addition, Ligue 1 entered into a deal with the private equity firm CVC in April 2022. This deal includes the transfer of 13% of all TV rights revenue generated by LFP Media over the next 99 years. For this, the LFP received 1.5 billion euros from CVC, which was intended to offset the lost TV revenue in the short term. However, these were distributed very unevenly, with Paris Saint Germain, for example, receiving 200 million euros, while the Abteigers, for example, received only 16.5 million euros. This means that the already decimated revenue will be cut by a further 13% for the clubs.
As if this whole development weren’t bad enough, the absolute worst-case scenario will follow in April 2025. DAZN does not comply with the promised payment terms and does not pay the agreed installments. DAZN justifies this with a failed business model, as hardly any subscribers can be gained through the TV rights. In addition, the LFP does not provide sufficient precautions against piracy and does not show flexibility in scheduling games so that they can be shown one after the other instead of in parallel. This is also a problem that BeIn Sports criticizes and therefore delayed the payment of 78.5 million euros as a final installment, ultimately legally ordered to make the payment.
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The financial fallout: How shrinking TV revenues are reshaping french football
The impact on French football is easy to name, but it has far-reaching consequences. The clubs simply have significantly less money. money with which they have partly planned and thus they have a gap in their budget. Clubs that do not have external donors or generally have a budget that is stitched on edge are forced to receive short-term money in order to continue to exist. The easiest way for a football club to make money quickly is to sell the best players for as much money as possible. It is well known that in France there is a particularly strong focus on young players and there are many talented players, such as RC Lens, whose work over the last few years we have analyzed in this article. These will be sold sooner with much needed money and also star players in the league will be sold to get money quickly and survive as a club. This leads to a vicious circle. Because when the league becomes less attractive in sporting terms as the best players leave the league, providers are not willing to pay more money. As a result, revenues from TV marketing will then continue to decline or can no longer be increased to the original amounts.
Ligue 1+: The league’s bold streaming strategy to replace lost TV income
But what is the league now doing to stop the ever-increasing downward spiral and increase revenue for the clubs? Due to the new conditions, Ligue 1 is taking innovative approaches. She has launched her own streaming platform called Ligue 1+. For 14.99€, Ligue 1+ offers live coverage of all matches, as well as coverage, interviews, and other exclusive content. A week after the league launched the streaming platform, it already reached 600,000 subscribers. Demand is definitely there in France, and the new concept is being adopted, unlike DAZN. The Premier League is also currently testing its own streaming platform, which is scheduled to be tested in Singapore next season. An analysis of Premier League+ can be found here. The LFP aims to no longer advertise the rights to all Ligue 1 matches, but to display all matches on the platform. BeIn Sports currently pays only 78.5 million euros for one game per matchday, which is broadcast. In the future, BeIn Sports will only broadcast Ligue 2 matches and pay LFP Media 40 million euros for them.
LFP Media plans for Ligue 1+ to reach one million subscribers in the 2025/26 season (currently 1.04 million subscribers) and 2 million subscribers in the three following seasons. There will also be changes to the scheduling of matches for the 2026/27 season. The Saturday evening games as four games multiplex, which no longer exist since 2021, will then be reintroduced. One of the games is then supposed to be a high-profile duel.
Future outlook: Can Ligue 1’s new strategy secure long‑term stability?
Ligue 1 has experienced an unprecedented drop in revenue within the marketing of its TV rights. This should be a warning example, especially for the other top leagues in Europe, especially for the leagues that work with DAZN, which, for example, have stopped making promised payments. This hits the clubs and the entire league and their reputation very hard, but it also offers a great opportunity. With Ligue 1+, Ligue 1 is the first top league in football to create and market its own streaming platform. If this runs well and LFP Media succeeds in rolling it out internationally and marketing it well, this can also lead to an advantage over the other leagues. Realistically, however, it is currently only a stopgap measure that ensures that the damage caused by the default payments is limited. For the 2025/26 season, the clubs will earn 142 million euros instead of just 78.5 million euros. However, Ligue 1 also demonstrates how to introduce its own streaming platform cost-effectively. The introduction of Ligue 1+ is said to have cost only 66 million euros in total. The Bundesliga originally wanted to invest up to one billion euros in the platform during its development. It will be interesting to see whether Ligue 1 continues on its path with its own platform or whether they eventually decide to re-tender the rights. The next chance to see which path LFP Media takes will be for the rights period 2029-2034.
