Ligue 1+: French football league losing hundreds of millions to piracy
French football chiefs say they have lost hundreds of millions of euros to illegal streaming of Ligue 1 matches in the latest blow to the value of their media rights.
Despite the competition being broadcast legally on Ligue 1+, the league’s own streaming platform, and pay TV network BeIn Sports, research found that 59 per cent of football fans in France have watched games on pirated services this season.
The French Professional Football League (LFP) and its commercial arm, LFP Media, presented the alarming figures on Monday at a conference organised by the Association for the Protection of Sports Programmes (APPS).
LFP Media legal director Douglas Lowenstein said that around “one-fifth of football fans refuse to pay to watch football”, resulting in “a loss of hundreds of millions of euros for Ligue 1+”.
It comes after the collapse of the LFP’s domestic media rights contract with global streaming platform Dazn after just one season, in part due to frustrations over the prevalence of piracy.
France and Norway warning for Premier League
The value of Ligue 1’s media rights has been slashed from almost €1bn to around €150m a year following a series of failed broadcast deals, causing severe financial distress for many top clubs.
Ligue 1+ was created last year to fill the gap caused by the premature end of the Dazn deal and, while a volume of more than 1m sign-ups has been encouraging, it is estimated that 2m people will watch via illegal streams this season.
The episode could have ramifications for the Premier League as it prepares to launch its own streaming platform, initially only in Singapore, in August.
Norway’s Eliteserien suspended its direct-to-consumer streaming platform last week over concerns that domestic consumers were using VPNs to access the cheaper international service. The league has since beefed up its VPN detection software in a bid to prevent the piracy.