Canal+ can afford a Ligue 1 match for 100 million euros!
After the announced agreement between DAZN, BeIN Sports, and Ligue 1, another bombshell could shake up the French championship. The match acquired by the Qatari channel could end up on Canal+.
Maxime Saada has said it repeatedly: his channel has invested heavily in sports. Notably, with the purchase of the rights to the Champions League and the Europa League, which costs Canal+ 480 million euros per year. This significant investment justified the absence of the renowned channel in the race for Ligue 1 broadcasting rights. However, business is business, and Canal+ could return to Ligue 1 sooner than expected. Arthur Perrot, a journalist from RMC working on the Ligue 1 broadcasting rights sale, revealed the day after the LFP-DAZN-BeIN Sports agreement that the Qatari sports channel has the right to subcontract the match per championship day it bought for 100 million euros, just as it did three years ago.
More concretely, BeIN Sports can resell this specific match without needing to ask for permission from the Ligue de Football Professionnel. “BeIN can very well sublicense this match for 200 million euros, even though they bought it for 100 million. Could this open a door for Canal+? This is not the current trend, as the encrypted channel is repeating behind the scenes that it is no longer interested in Ligue 1,” acknowledges our colleague. It is true that Canal+ Premium gives a lot of prominence to the Top 14 on weekends, and it seems unlikely that Ligue 1 would displace the French rugby championship from the number one channel, especially since Canal+ has just extended its contract with the Ligue Nationale de Rugby. Therefore, it might be a while before the 18 Ligue 1 clubs can resume dialogue with the Bolloré group’s channel.
