Paris (AFP)

One hoped to justify the increase of its tariffs, the other one was already proposing French Ligue 1 and Champions League to bait the customer but for RMC Sport and Mediapro, the attribution of the European rights to the competition complicular singularly gives the .

So far, RMC Sport could count on the English Premier League and the European cups, two of the best European football competitions, stolen from Canal + and BeIN, to convince football fans to subscribe.

But the subsidiary of SFR suffered a first blow in 2018 with the loss of the Premier League in favor of Canal +.

RMC Sport will mitigate the shock by negotiating with Vivendi's subsidiary to co-broadcast the English championship, losing however at the same time its exclusivity on a major championship.

"This year, they had entered a price-raising strategy, which made sense after the vesting period, but how can we now justify raising prices for something they will not have in a year from now? ? "wonders Vincent Chaudel, founder of the Sport Business Observatory.

Because in a world where football remains the flagship sport, difficult to attract subscribers with some tennis tournaments, French and European basketball or combat sports, other competitions that make up the grid of RMC Sport.

At the last world basketball championships, the French victory against the United States attracted only 220,000 spectators on Canal + Sports when the semi-final against Argentina, on Canal + and M6, had accumulated 1.6 million viewers .

Far, very far from the 12.9 million people who followed France-Uruguay in the quarter-finals of the World Cup in 2018 on TF1. Or 11.8 million in front of France-United States at the women's world this summer.

In televised sport, out of football, no salvation. Or so little.

- "breakage sooner or later" -

"RMC Sport has a year to find a solution to this situation.One solution could go through an agreement with Mediapro, which would allow them to get their hands on part of Ligue 1," adds Vincent Chaudel.

Especially since Mediapro is also facing a problem. If nothing is known about the future channel set up for the broadcast of the next season of Ligue 1, in just nine months, including the Champions League would have given more credit to the project Mediapro, and justified the proposed price by the Sino-Spanish producer, 25 euros per month.

"Mediapro won the first set with Ligue 1, BeIN and Canal have just replied to the Champions League, but the match is not over," Chaudel insists.

Specialist TV production before being a broadcaster, Mediapro - who has already felt that the decision announced Friday was "unclear" and said consider a recourse - would not have a bad eye sharing the League 1 with one of his current competitors.

"Our model everywhere is not to have exclusivity, it is thought to be detrimental to the development of the product, which is what we do in Spain, Canada or Latin America, for example, and I hope that we will do it in France, "explained Jaume Roures, the president of Mediapro recently.

However, facing a Canal + -BeIN Sport axis, which have already approached a commercial point of view, to which is added TF1, a synergy between the two losers of the day could be a way for RMC Sport and Mediapro to ensure their survival, for a time at least.

Because in the long run, the question arises of the fierce competition that four players are now playing, often backed by large groups or states, but all in precarious economic situations.

"There will be inevitably breakage sooner or later, it's a certainty.You can not stay at four paying operators in a market like France," concludes Vincent Chaudel.

© 2019 AFP