DAZN terminates Ligue 1 rights deal after just one year
The owner of DAZN Bet had a four-year deal to broadcast top-tier French football.
France.- Directors of France’s Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) have voted to accept an agreement to terminate the Ligue 1 broadcasting rights deal with the sports streaming provider DAZN, which was preparing to launch its DAZN Bet sports betting brand in the country. The decision comes less than a year into a four-year deal.
DAZN has agreed to pay the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) €100m as an exit fee as well as €140m for two outstanding instalments following a dispute that emerged at the beginning of the year. The parties reached differing interpretations of the contract signed last August. DAZN withheld certain payments and claimed that the LFP had failed to sufficiently promote the streaming offering, resulting in a high amount of piracy and illegal streaming. It also criticised the price of the subscription deal.
The league has secured a new but less profitable deal with CVC. It reportedly now intends to develop its own direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming service. It’s possible that the company could end up working with the league as a partner on that, but it remains to be seen what form that would take and if the service would be more sustainable. Meanwhile, French press report that several clubs, including Montpellier, Le Havre and Angers could face bankruptcy as a result of a drop in TV rights revenue.
According to France’s L’Equipe, DAZN said in a statement: “Coming to France, losing money and stopping after a year does not make much sense. We are convinced that we can bring great added value to the league as part of this chain project. Leaving the clubs in the unknown with a chain project that does not yet have the beginning of something concrete seems extremely adventurous to us three and a half months before the start of the championship. We are ready to invest a hundred million euros for this channel.”
DAZN, which is led by former Entain CEO Shay Segev, was still making a loss, according to its latest report to Companies House in the UK, but the company said it hoped to “drive margin to profitability”.
