After four failed broadcast licence deals over five years, France’s top football league will launch its own subscription service in August.

In the short-term, consumer take up will critically depend on bundling arrangements with third-party platforms.

Longer-term, the league will need to establish lasting partnerships. Outdated competition rules are an obstacle, but the Dutch model is worth considering.

As Ligue 1 seeks yet another broadcast arrangement for next season, the French league’s value is expected to erode further.

Outside the UK, the value of major leagues’ live rights are trending downwards. The Champions League—now sold by Relevent—is the silver lining, seeking to sign up a streamer.

Global streaming platforms have a growing appetite for sports rights—but European leagues need patience.

The French league and DAZN have come to an agreement to end their media rights contract after one season, with the league now having had four main broadcast partners in five years.

DAZN claims the league failed to protect its ‘exclusivity’, resulting in high piracy. Ligue 1 blames poor execution.

Without a main broadcast partner for next season, Ligue 1 is exploring the idea of creating its own direct-to-consumer service.

Canal+ is entering a critical phase of growth following the recent merger with its former rival Télévision Par Satellite (TPS). Vivendi has set short term guidance targets for 2010 of 11.5 million subscriptions, turnover above €5 billion and more than doubling of EBITA from €490 million to over €1 billion. This presentation examines these targets and concludes that Canal+ will fall short of all them. In the best case baseline scenario of least competition from other pay-TV and free-to-air (FTA) services, it projects EBITA in 2010 of just €890 million

France’s football rights auction for the four seasons starting in 2008 ended with a second round on 6th February. Canal+ will keep most rights, while France Télécom picks up some live rights for the first time

Vivendi’s preliminary results for FY 2007 show weak subscription growth by France’s leading pay-TV operator Canal+ despite the existence of special positive factors. Strengthening free-to-air (FTA) competition on the DTT and DSL platforms appears the main cause

In an apparent change of direction, France Télécom said it would consider bidding for all the 12 packages of French televised football rights at the auction to be held tomorrow, 31st January, including the primetime slots that last went to Canal+ – but FT also claims to rule out an all out assault against Canal+