International sports streaming service DAZN has made an offer of €375 million ($406.3 million) on average over five years for a major set of Ligue 1 French domestic soccer rights, according to reports.
The L’Equipe publication reported late last week that DAZN has tabled an offer with French league soccer’s LFP body which amounts to €300 million across 2024-25, with the annual amount then increasing before ending up at €500 million in 2028-29.
DAZN would cover eight of the nine Ligue 1 games per matchday (the competition will be made up of 18 teams from next season) through 2028-29.
The reported offer comes with domestic Ligue 1 rights for the next commercial cycle still unsold - the new campaign starts on August 18, with the LFP now under significant pressure to resolve the situation.
L’Equipe reported that a significant LFP meeting on Friday (July 5) did not lead to a permanent resolution.
Initial reports putting DAZN in pole position to secure the main set of domestic Ligue 1 rights emerged in January.
For the previous Ligue 1 cycle, global tech and retail giant Amazon paid €250 million per year to show eight matches per week, through its Prime video streaming service, while pay-TV heavyweight Canal Plus paid €332 million annually for two matches.
The organization initially tendered the rights to both Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 for the next cycle on September 13 after being granted permission by the French government to extend the length of the contracts from four to five years.
However, no offers that have met the LFP’s requirements have yet been forthcoming, with Ligue 1 losing its biggest star - Kylian Mbappe - to Spanish giants Real Madrid next season.
This marks the LFP’s first broadcast rights sales process since agreeing to a commercial partnership with private equity group CVC Capital Partners last year.
One solution that is still being considered by the LFP is the creation of a new in-house dedicated Ligue 1 channel and DTC service which would carry 100% of domestic games.
Plans for the channel were reportedly put forward in late June, with French media outlets claiming that a proposed €30 per month service would aim to attract as many as two million subscribers and generate over €578 million in its first season, with both subscribers and revenue growth year-on-year targeted.
Earlier this month, CazéTV, the Brazilian YouTube channel run by prominent streamer Casimiro Miguel, secured rights to Ligue 1 in Brazil.
In terms of French domestic men’s soccer rights, late June did see the LFP renew its media rights deal for the second-tier Ligue 2 with international pay-TV giant BeIN Sports.
Throughout the deal, BeIN will showcase 100% of the competition’s matches exclusively on its selection of pay-TV sports networks, alongside shoulder content and ancillary magazine programming.
BeIN first acquired the rights to Ligue 2 back in 2018 to cover the 2020-21 to 2023-24 cycle, but has had an overall association with French soccer since 2012.
DAZN, meanwhile, has already snapped up domestic rights to a French sporting property in July, through a deal with France’s National Basketball League (NBL) organizer and its FFBB governing body.
