France’s top soccer league is pulling its domestic TV tender forward two years and pitching it as a bargain after a decade of broken deals.

French soccer is shopping its rights again, and this time it is leading with the price. The LFP will seek bids for domestic broadcast rights covering 2027 to 2032, two years ahead of its original 2029 to 2034 plan, LFP Media chief executive Olivier Bramly told SportsPro.

Bramly framed it as “a once-in-a-lifetime occasion to get a domestic league in a big market like France at an affordable price.” Bidders can go after all match broadcast rights or exclusive distribution of Ligue 1+, the league’s in-house streamer. The reserve price has not been disclosed.

He insists this is no distress sale. “We are not launching a tender because we don’t believe it has been a success,” Bramly said. Ligue 1+ has drawn around a million subscribers by SportsPro’s count, although the league no longer publishes the figure, and revenue per user rose by €5 after the service took over a weekly match that used to air on beIN Sports.

The history explains the caution. In 2018 Mediapro won most of the domestic rights for €814 million a year, then missed payments and exited the contract in December 2020. Amazon stepped in at €250 million per season. DAZN agreed in 2024 to pay €400 million for eight of nine weekly matches, with beIN paying €100 million for the ninth, but the league and DAZN agreed to end that deal in April 2025 amid a dispute over unpaid rights. Ligue 1+ launched that August.

Now the streamer is the safety net. Bramly called it “the life insurance” of the league, and with Ligue 1+ the exclusive home of French top-flight soccer this season, any outside bidder is effectively competing with the league’s own platform rather than with an empty slot.

Watch who shows up. Canal+ does not carry Ligue 1+ today and DAZN cut its last deal short, so the real test is whether anyone offers more than a league that has learned to sell to itself.

Sources

• SportsPro – Ligue 1 promises a ‘bargain’ as it eyes new French TV deal from 2027 – https://www.sportspro.com/news/broadcast-ott/ligue-1-french-tv-deal-2027/
• Wikipedia – Mediapro – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediapro
• Wikipedia – Ligue 1 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligue_1

Featured photo: Kilyac, CC BY-SA 4.0.