Mediapro Makes Good on Payment to Troubled French Soccer League

(Bloomberg) -- Spanish broadcaster Mediapro paid the first installment of its rights fee to France's Ligue 1 soccer league Thursday, ahead of its debut as primary broadcast partner this month.

The payment of 172 million euros ($204 million), confirmed by the league's chief executive Didier Quillot in an email to Bloomberg, comes as the company tries to line up partners to get its new business off the ground in France. Mediapro is paying 800 million euros in total.

The French league, home to Neymar and Kylian Mbappé of Paris Saint-Germain, took out a government-backed loan in May after Covid-19 forced it to cancel the remainder of its season. BeIN Sports then suspended a 42 million-euro payment to Ligue 1 while Canal Plus reduced its payments due.

Mediapro stunned France's soccer establishment in 2018 when it trumped Vivendi SA's pay-tv unit Canal Plus for the rights to show Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 championship games, which it had held for over three decades. Mediapro subsequently added matches from UEFA's Champions League and other competitions following a deal with Altice Europe NV's SFR.

BeIN Says It Will Suspend Payments to French Soccer League

Its bid for French soccer was at a large premium to the price Canal Plus paid in the previous cycle, leading some media experts, like Francois Godard of Enders Analysis, to predict last October there was a high risk of the launch not going ahead. The new season is set to begin Aug. 21, with Marseille playing Saint-Etienne.

Julien Bergeaud, the managing director of Mediapro Sport France, said the group was negotiating hard with three telecom groups for its new football channel Telefoot, to be carried on their networks. It has also done a bundling deal, in which Netflix customers can subscribe to Telefoot for a discounted price.

But he said that discussions with Canal Plus, previously the main pay broadcaster, had gone “very cold.”

The French league is Europe's least wealthy among the top-tier nations, but it does contain giants PSG and other powerful teams such as Marseille, Lyon and Nice, which was recently bought by British entrepreneur Jim Ratcliffe.

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