In May 2018, the Sino-Spanish group Mediapro made a sensational entry into the French media landscape by winning, for 800 million euros per season, the television rights to Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 from 2020 to 2024. After this major acquisition, football fans could then expect to have to take out a subscription to Téléfoot, the Mediapro channel, to be able to watch the two best French championships. But it is not that simple.
Where to watch Ligue 1, and at what cost?
First complication: Téléfoot will not broadcast the entirety of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2. For the first division, the Mediapro group offered itself the poster for Friday evening (9 p.m.), the meeting on Saturday afternoon (5 p.m.), two matches (1 p.m. and 9 p.m.) and the Sunday multiplex. The other meetings (Saturday at 9 p.m. and Sunday at 5 p.m.) will be the property of Canal +.
Téléfoot will also broadcast almost all Ligue 2 matches, since the channel has acquired the rights to the Saturday multiplex (7 p.m.). BeIN Sports will nevertheless keep the posters for Saturday afternoon (3 p.m.) and Monday evening (8:45 p.m.).
French football lovers will therefore have to turn to Téléfoot to enjoy the greatest number of matches. They will then have to subscribe to one of the two classic offers offered by Mediapro.
SFR, the only Téléfoot distributor
After negotiating with Orange, it was finally with the Altice group (owner of SFR) that Mediapro came to an agreement on Monday, July 27. If no other announcement is made, only the owners of an SFR box will be able to benefit from the new dominant channel of French football. Those who subscribe to one of Téléfoot’s two offers will also be able to benefit from the RMC sport channel, on which they will be able to watch the championships in England and Portugal.
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At the cost of a second agreement with Altice, the Mediapro group also obtained the right to co-broadcast the Champions League and the Europa League. They will be available on Téléfoot and RMC Sport, which holds the television rights to the two European Cups for one more season.
Other unique offers
In addition to its two classic offers, Mediapro intends to present other more innovative packages. On Thursday July 30, the group announced an agreement with Netflix to offer a dual subscription available from August 17. With this offer, Mediapro wishes to extend its influence on the French television landscape and compete with Canal +, which has based its strategy on the broadcasting of films, series and sports.
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The Sino-Spanish group does not intend to stop there: other agreements with Facebook or Amazon could be found by the start of the season, and its president, Jaumes Roures, has not closed the door to usual distributors, such as Canal +. Time is running out, since the Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 seasons will resume on the weekend of August 22.
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