October 23: Ligue 1 returns to the TV market two years ahead of schedule, with French clubs eyeing a bigger broadcast deal barely 18 months after the launch of the league’s own Ligue 1+ platform.
The LFP board unanimously approved a new domestic rights tender covering the period 2027/28 to 2031/32, with bids opening on 3 November and closing on 7 December.
The nine games from each round will be offered together in a single exclusive package, a departure from previous auctions where the championship had to be split into several lots, made possible by a change to French sports law in August.
Prospective partners will have two distribution options: buy Ligue 1 rights and show the matches themselves, or become the exclusive distributor of Ligue 1+.
The rights bid gives the LFP a route back to a mainstream broadcast deal without necessarily eliminating the in-house streaming service it created after DAZN’s early exit in 2025.
Ligue 1+ currently carries all top-flight matches and had just under 1.1 million subscribers at the end of last season. But the financial reality is that the return is far less than what clubs were getting before the collapse of France’s last television rights.
French channel Le Monde reports that Ligue 1+ is expected to generate around €150m for clubs this season. The league is also drawing on reserves to maintain distributions after losing the €78.5m annual payment from beIN Sports and the €85m paid by DAZN to terminate its deal.
It is the latest attempt to repair a domestic rights market that has been reeling from one crisis to another since Mediapro’s €1 billion-a-year deal collapsed shortly after 2020 began.
DAZN and beIN subsequently agreed rights worth around €500 million per season for the 2024-29 cycle, only for DAZN to negotiate an early exit a year later.
The logic goes that having back-to-back UEFA Champions League winners on the domestic roster would strengthen the media supply.
LFP president Vincent Labrune believes the market looks healthier this time around.
“This decision comes in a new context. For several months, we have received a number of concrete expressions of interest from different market players,” he said.
“Ligue 1 is attractive and the timing of this tender seems to us much more favorable than in the past to attract the interest of the main players in the market.”
Canal+ boss Maxime Saada has already left the door open to a return to Ligue 1 football, saying this week that the broadcaster would consider French football again if the numbers made commercial sense. Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney+, Paramount and beIN have also been linked, although none have publicly committed to the bidding process.
If the auction fails, the LFP can only keep Ligue 1+ running under existing deals until 2029 and try again later, although the €150m figure is well below what a Big 5 league would request from a national TV partner.
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at (email protected)