Global streaming service DAZN has reached an agreement with French soccer’s LFP organizing body to terminate their domestic broadcast contract for the top-flight Ligue 1 – after just one season.
The OTT platform and the league came to a resolution after the LFP board of directors, made up of presidents of Ligue 1 clubs, recently voted to end the five-year rights deal.
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French outlet L’Equipe has reported that DAZN will pay €100 million to break the contract, and the final two rights payments worth another €140 million. This agreement between the broadcaster and the league will be presented to the LFP’s administrative council on Friday (May 2) to be ratified.
DAZN has been cited as telling L’Equipe: “There is an exit option in the contract that ties us to the league, because they want to launch their own channel.
“Coming to France, losing money, and then stopping after one year doesn’t make much sense. We are convinced that in the context of the Ligue 1 channel project, we can bring significant added value.
“Leaving the clubs in the dark with a channel project that hasn't yet begun to materialize seems extremely risky to us, three and a half months before the start of the new season. We are ready to invest around €100 million for this channel.”
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By GlobalDataThe streaming giant is keen to retain a partnership with the LFP and believes it is best placed to support the league in its plans to launch an in-house channel next season.
If DAZN were to be named as a partner for LFP’s channel, the latter would forego the €100 million fee for breaking the rights contract.
DAZN added: “The league may have other options, although we believe the right decision would be to go ahead with this channel project with DAZN.”
The platform has held talks with Nicolas de Tavernost, who was recently appointed as the new chief executive of the LFP Media subsidiary.
The experienced entertainment executive previously had a 24-year spell as the president of French media giant M6 (2000-2024) and soccer side Bordeaux (owned by M6 between 1999 and 2018).
On discussions with de Tavernost, DAZN stated: “We welcome the arrival of Nicolas de Tavernost. He knows the media well and is a rigorous manager. He has a good understanding of the football world because Bordeaux was one of his assets when he ran M6.
“The discussions we have with him are very constructive. Under these conditions, if there is a channel project, it's important for us to officially apply. We hope to have a favorable reception. We have a great proposal.”
It remains to be seen if the LFP chooses to maintain a relationship with the UK-based company after just concluding a long period of tense negotiations over their broadcast deal.
Earlier this year, DAZN failed to pay half of a rights fee instalment of around €70 million that was originally due in January.
The streamer withheld €35 million worth of funds, citing challenging operational conditions, partly due to piracy issues and insufficient cooperation from certain clubs in promoting the Ligue 1 product and failing to provide editorial content.
At that time, it was reported that DAZN, which picked up Ligue 1 rights in a highly contentious bidding saga in mid-2024, was convinced that the LFP did not give the broadcaster’s executives all the required elements regarding the marketing distribution of the league prior to signing a €375 million-per-year rights deal.
This forced the LFP to take legal action against the broadcaster to receive the funds.
After mediation by the Paris Economic Activities Tribunal, DAZN finally paid the remainder of the funds it owed, of its January media rights fee, in late February.
The pair, however, agreed to extend the mediation process in the Paris Commercial Court, with the deadline to end mediation, initially scheduled for March 31, pushed back to April 10.
For several weeks, this mediator, appointed by the Paris Commercial Court, had been trying to find common ground between the two parties. Discussions between the organizations intensified, with the extension put in place for more constructive talks between them – only for the appointed mediator to propose that the two partners to terminate their contract.
Ligue 1 action is shown domestically by both DAZN (eight matches per game week) and BeIN Sports (one game), through a five-year deal that began at the start of this season.
The agreements are worth around €400 million annually, with DAZN paying most of the figure.
The LFP is expected to also hold talks with BeIN to end their agreement, meanwhile.
The Ligue 1 media rights saga that engulfed the summer of 2024 was disastrous, and as many as eight second-tier Ligue 2 clubs were said to be at risk of bankruptcy had a deal not been reached.
The LFP tanked its domestic broadcast rights outlook by overestimating the value of its package, resulting in this season marking the first time since 1984 that French broadcasting heavyweight Canal Plus is not airing live Ligue 1 matches.
