The feature article is not enough for the first episodes without already causing cold sweats at the Professional (Site notre blog d’information) League. Monday morning, the chairman of the board of Canal+ (a subsidiary of Vivendi, like Capital), wrote to Vincent Labrune, the president of the LFP to tell him what everyone feared: the encrypted channel no longer wants to pay to broadcast the championship of France (Site notre bureau spécialisé) whose call for applications for TV rights for the 2024-2029 season has just opened. A real revolution since Canal has been the privileged partner of Ligue 1 for 40 years.

Between Canal+ and the League, a broken trust

“You do not have the right to penalize Canal+ in the exploitation of these three things, in particular in programming, in the distribution of our subscriptions and in the transmission of sentiment to all our teams on Amazon with a privileged system, according to Maxime Saada In his mail. The conditions of your new call for tenders have convinced us that your only objective was to exclude Canal+ and favor Amazon.

The charge is violent and corresponds to the spirit of the rain in the streets of Canal+ or the drivers who feel like they are sinking during the turn of events post-failure of Mediapro, the French broadcaster.

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After the failure of Jaume Roures’ pilot group, Canal+ was allocated 200 million euros in February 2021 in the League to get through the Covid crisis and continue to fight between the clubs. Then the LFP initiated a dialogue with potential broadcasters, including Canal, but by refusing the historic broadcaster to renegotiate the lot it had acquired during the call for tenders won by Mediapro, namely two Ligue 1 matches for weekend for 332 million euros per year. Instead, the LFP high-fived Amazon, which recovered the eight other matches, including the Sunday evening poster, for only 250 million euros, without however being able to make this investment profitable according to specialists in the field. sector. Since then, Canal+, which has a legal right over the League, has always had its appeals initially rejected. A final decision must be made before the end of the second season. This is why Maxime Saada rushed to write to the LFP.

Empty chair, but full TV schedule

On September 12, delivery of the call to candidates for the next TV rights from the offices of the law firm which supports the LFP in its project, the heads of Canal+ brilliant in their absence. Already a sign of their disinterest in the Ligue 1 product. It must be said that the encrypted channel has diversified its rights portfolio and does not intend to put on the table at least 530 million euros per year, i.e. the requested reserve price so that the LFP broadcasts the best of Ligue 1 throughout the seasons.

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For 480 million euros per year, Canal+ regained the exclusivity of Champions League posters until 2027. Just before last weekend, the newspaper The Team Indicated that the encrypted channel is also available in extension its contrast with the English Premier League for a new cycle running until 2028 for an amount of approximately 75 million euros per year. What to fill your (Site notre bureau spécialisé) grids over the weekend, in addition to the Top 14 rugby (until 2027), Formula 1 (2029) and motorcycling (2029) including the Grand Prix without problem posters Dominican Republic in Ligue 1.

A diffuser can be used as a cover in another way

It is also possible for you to send Maxime Saada a new strategic design. Preventing the channel from being a candidate, the boss of the Canal sends a message to the march: the question of participants in an inflation of auctions. Other potential broadcasters (Amazon, BeIN Sports, Apple, DAZN, etc.) are available on the same game lots (the 3 best matches of the weekend for 530 million euros minimum; the rest of the matches for 270 million minimum), the latter could very well sublicense them to Canal+. The LFP is in good condition to operate with a minimum contract of two.

Canal+ has also been connected for several years and is a digital channel generator with the MyCanal platform. It has just signed an agreement with the British pure player DAZN, a sort of Netflix of sport but still very little present in France, to include it in its digital offering. On the other hand, Canal+ offers these two Ligue 1 matches which are broadcast throughout the weekend of this season with DAZN subscriptions.

Without a computer, Canal is also the exclusive distributor of BeIn Sports, which has a channel that can be regulated and controlled again each year. If you are on Amazon, you will have access to your own finances with Canal+, the channel will be encrypted in a place with the names of the players in the sector, which means that you have a positive link in the concern to continue with the offer The French (Site notre blog d’information) Champion receives subscriptions via its partners. Besides, we would have almost forgotten it but in 2018, during the last call for tenders, Canal+ had not won anything, it was BeIn Sports which had agreed to sublicense its lot to lower its bill. A strategy similar to that of the Qatar channel or another part of the Canal is not absolute without excluding auctions before October 17.