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The leading French football league failed to auction off four lots of TV rights for the 2021-2024 seasons that had been returned by its cash-strapped former broadcaster Mediapro, plunging the sport deeper into crisis.
The Professional Football League (LFP) said in a press release Monday night, he had received offers from technology giant Amazon, US channel Discovery, owner of Eurosport, and sports streaming service DAZN. None of the offers were considered sufficiently valid by the league.
“Since the reserve prices were not met, the consultations were not successful,” he said. “The LFP will take 48 hours to determine the next steps in marketing its television rights.”
The French Ligue 1, made up of 20 teams including Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique de Marseille, must now seek a new way out of the slow motion crisis that started in October when Mediapro simply stopped paying the TV rights. Several club presidents told the Financial Times earlier that the situation could push some clubs into bankruptcy, and many have already started negotiating with players to reduce their salaries.
The auction’s failure is largely due to the fact that pay-TV operator Vivendi Canal Plus and beIN Sports, backed by Qatar, did not submit bids.
Canal Plus has been the main broadcaster of French football for decades, but in 2018 the league cut it in favor of newcomer Mediapro in an auction that drove the total price up nearly 60% to just over a billion euros. At that time, beIN Sports won a smaller set of rights and then signed a license agreement worth € 330 million per year with Canal Plus to give them access to the matches.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic last year threw a veil on sport by undermining ticket and merchandising revenues. The crisis crippled Mediapro’s attempt to launch a new pay-TV channel called Telefoot to showcase French football, and by October the Spanish company had simply stopped paying the hundreds of millions it owed the league.
Mediapro then requested the protection of the courts of its creditors, namely the LFP.
After a fierce struggle and a court-supervised mediation process, both parties finally agreed that Mediapro would return the rights, leaving the league free to resell them. But the broadcaster would only pay a fraction of what it owed the league, putting enormous strain on the finances of member clubs.
And before the auction could take place, Canal Plus launched legal action against the LFP, arguing that the league should also take back the batch of rights it had granted to beIN Sports. Canal Plus argued that it would be fairer to resell all rights, otherwise it would be stuck with the inflated prices set in the 2018 auction.
The league refused, then proceeded with the auction that failed on Monday. A hearing is scheduled for February 19 to hear the Canal Plus case against the league.
Canal Plus also lodged a complaint with the French competition regulator over the league’s decision.
Canal Plus and beIN Sports declined to comment.
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