International pay-TV giant BeIN Sports has renewed its media rights agreement with French soccer’s LFP governing body, covering the country’s second-tier Ligue 2 competition.
The multi-year agreement, including both international and domestic media rights, will run from the beginning of the upcoming 2024-25 season, which will kick off on August 17, through to the end of the 2028-29 campaign.
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.
Speaking on the renewal, LFP president Vincent Labrune stated: “The allocation of all [broadcast] packages to BeIN Sports is excellent news for all Ligue 2 clubs as well as their supporters, who will continue to benefit from remarkable expertise and coverage with all matches and magazines.”
The LFP only retendered the Ligue 2 (and top-tier Ligue 1) rights earlier in June after being unsuccessful in its initial attempts to find a steward for the next five years of media rights for the two competitions.
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.
The initial Ligue 2 tender was postponed by the LFP last October after its reserve price for the competition was not met by an October 17 deadline, however.
The reserve prices for the two main second-tier Ligue 2 rights packages at that point stood at €26 million ($27.9 million) and €14 million.
However, with the reserve price for Ligue 1 also not met, the LFP extended the tender process for the top-flight league and opted to negotiate domestic rights directly - but is still without a deal with the new season due to start in less than two months.
The LFP was hopeful that the increased five-year contract length would attract bids of more value than its high reserve prices for the two main packages of live Ligue 1 rights - which stood at €530 million and €270 million per season, respectively.
With a domestic Ligue 1 broadcaster not forthcoming only a matter of weeks away from the beginning of 2024-25, the LFP has proposed a solution, namely the creation of a new in-house dedicated Ligue 1 channel and DTC service which will carry 100% of domestic games.
Plans for the channel were reportedly put forward earlier this week (June 25), with French media outlets claiming that the proposed €30 per month service would aim to attract as many as 2 million subscribers and generate over €578 million in its first season, with both subscribers and revenue growth year-on-year targeted.
The LFP has reportedly already purchased the relevant media facilities should this contingency go ahead, although it is said to still be in negotiations over the rights that would hopefully generate more than that €578 million figure, which would mean lower club payments than previous deals.
