With her 100 % Ligue 1 channel, does the LFP act that her championship is (almost) nothing?

The next time he entered a saloon to collapse in Zinc, the cowboy John Textor will certainly have a small victorious grin when he greet his sworn enemy, Nasser al-khelïfileaning at the counter sipping his favorite grapefruit juice. Unable to see yourself in paintingthe two strong men of OL and PSG were struggling last summer about TV rights.

When the OL boss was pushing for the creation of a 100 % LEGUE 1 channel stamped LFP Media, that of Paris Saint-Germain preferred to take everyone on Dazn's train. Less than nine months later, it has completely derailed and is already preparing to flee our country (and its championship) like the plague, relying at the same time the idea of ​​a paid channel created by the League. Unlike a year ago, this project seems to be starting to see the light of day. Not so much by choice of the league as by obligation.

A more forced channel project than wanted

End specialist in the unnamed shit that are the TV rights of French football since the LFP chose to happen in 2018 of Canal+, its historic diffuser, the economist Jean-Pascal Gayant had trouble believing in it at the start. But the context has changed. “I have the impression that there is no longer too much choice since the potential diffusers do not seem to jostle at the gate,” he sums up. They are all scalded by recent experiences with Mediapp, Prime or Dazn. Each diffuser demonstrated that the economic model was not viable. Even Amazon, who paid only 250 million for nine games, with a subscription around 15 euros, has never managed to make his investment profitable. »»

As original as it is, this channel project managed by a national football league, unique in Europe, is more like an admission of helplessness than anything else. In fact, no diffuser has ever managed to get into its costs. For its part, despite a purchase price not fifou to broadcast 90 % of the ten L1 games per week (375 million euros), Dazn estimates its losses between 200 and 250 million euros for its first season.

Hoping (we do not know how) reaching the 1.5 million subscribers mark at the end of the first year, the British platform took the moccasins in the carpet and counts, according to an absolutely illegible pricing policy (ranging from 39.99 euros per month at the start to finish at the price of a poor Ligue 1 menu at MCDO), just over 550,000 faithful.

The worst context possible to launch a chain

An observation which does not surprise many people, except perhaps club presidents and the thinking heads of the LFP, and which is quite simply explained by:

1. A sausage of TV rights that obliges supporters … Uh, sorry, consumers, to stack the subscriptions to see the entire French championship.
2. A total absence of suspense in the title race, guarded from the wealthy PSG.
3. A show not always there that rather pushes you to opt for a good little restaurant once in time rather than a subscription for L1.
4. The possibility of seeing Ligue 1 for free thanks to increasingly developed hacking.
5. An absolutely above-ground rate offered by Dazn at the start of the season, the source of a fierce boycott on the part of the usual L1 consumers.

Which makes our economist say that there is now “a kind of invisibilization of Ligue 1, which has become far from the eyes and far from the heart”. “The LFP no longer seems capable of maintaining a win-win relationship with its various broadcasters, whatever they are,” abounds Pierre Maes, another species of sports TV rights and author of The ruin of French footballin June 2022. She entered Mediapp in a cycle of unhappy decisions, and it is clear that this cycle does not seem to find an end. Hence the idea – a bit forced – to do without broadcasters and go rider alone with an LFP channel. Will this be enough to save what is left of furniture? Nothing is less certain.

“It's a hell of a challenge,” warns Pierre Maes. We start from scratch, it costs money. The difficulty is not to produce and do the programs, the difficulty is to go and get subscribers with the teeth and keep them. However, we know today that a toll television mono, it is extremely difficult to hold in the long term. I wouldn't say there is no chance, but it's not far away. »»

Especially since with a price estimated around 28 euros per month (with access to the Max catalog, which would associate with the League to expand its offer), the leaders do not seem frankly to have retained the lesson. “They still haven't taken the measure of what the maximum availability was to pay people for the Ligue 1. spectacle. They learn very little from their mistakes, it's pathetic. If they are really in this logic, they have understood absolutely nothing new. At this price, the 1.8 or 2 million potential subscribers are a chimera, they do not exist. »»

“It's completely eccentric”

“We know that young people, that is to say below 45, do not pay or pay little for this kind of content. The league project will not change the problem of hacking, which will remain its number 1 enemy as it is today for Dazn. Basically, there is no worse as conditions to launch this type of product. As for the two million subscribers at the end of the first season, no sensible person can believe that. By Domino effect, difficult for our two economists to believe in the LFP forecasts which, last year, mentioned income up to 553 million euros for the first season (800 later, etc.).

« “It's extremely optimistic, not to say worse,” breathes Pierre Maes. And then consider a substantial increase in income the following seasons, so this is completely eccentric. They made a very beautiful business plan in emergency because it was necessary to convince the clubs, but it remains of the order of fantasy. »» »

What makes Jean-Pascal Gayant say that “the substance of the problem is that the amount that can be obtained in TV rights is low, perhaps 300 million euros, and that the people of the league continue to think that it is 500 or 600 million. The product has clearly been devalued and they do not want to admit it. This was already the conclusion to which Maxime Saada, the Director General of Canal came during his hearing before the parliamentary commission of inquiry in January 2024. The LFP and the clubs had then laughed at him. What a pif …

Today, the time is no longer at all fanfaronnade for French football which already lives well above its means but which believes itself always more powerful than it is. And the coming months are promising to say the least folk. If the show is not always there on the field, behind the scenes, however, no one arrives at the ankle of our farmers League in terms of storytelling, dramaturgy and twists and turns. There may be something to dig with Netflix, finally.