Paris (AFP)

The crisis of TV rights in French football has revived the idea of ​​new broadcasting models, via more personalized offers, or even "pay-per-view", a payment for matches.

True potential or false good ideas?

Canal + has thought about it.

The channel offered to sell the L1 and L2 matches individually on its digital platforms, while the Professional Football League (LFP) finds a new broadcaster for the matches abandoned after the failure of the Mediapro group, ex-holder. 80% of the French Championship.

At the end of the autumn, the president of Lyon Jean-Michel Aulas, supporter of a "football Spotify", had already called for an overhaul of the model of TV rights, traditionally based on subscription to pay channels, which gives clubs more visibility than irregular pay-per-view (PPV) receipts.

The Mediapro fiasco was largely due to a "disproportionate" subscription, explained the boss of OL to the magazine Challenges: 25 euros per month for 8 L1 and 8 L2 matches per week.

"The cumulative offer (...) rather than selective, no longer attracts (...) when we can easily adapt the offer to the user's needs", proposed "JMA".

- "Fragmented universe" -

This is the basic principle of the PPV, already common in American markets, with a great tradition in combat sports: the purchase of meetings - or even pieces of meetings - individually on a digital OTT platform (" over the top ", ie outside the subscription to the internet service provider).

The first attempts at PPV in French football, in the years 1990-2000, were not successful.

Recently, however, the German Championship set it up for its second division and the English Premier League made an attempt this fall, before retracting in front of the fan's sling at the prohibitive price: 14.95 pounds, or nearly 17 euros per game.

"We are now in a much more fragmented world, where the mode of consumption is much more individual, more affinity. The context is therefore much better to embark on this path", underlines Arnaud Simon, former boss of Eurosport France and consultant.

For this specialist, the beneficiaries must nevertheless take this turn in a measured way, without drawing a line on the traditional diffusion of football, and by insisting especially on the personalization of the offer.

"The pay-per-view must be integrated into a radically different offer: one could imagine a + supporter + subscription model with a pass for the matches of your club, to which would be added other personalized offers in pay. per-view ", continues Arnaud Simon.

- Redistribution -

Be careful, however, on the other side of the coin.

According to Nicolas Blanc, president of the Sport Value consulting agency, the idea deserves to be studied but could lead to a reinforcement of inequalities between clubs.

"If in France only PSG, Lyon, Marseille and four or five others interest the public, the clubs concerned will say: + It is only us who create value. + We risk calling into question the mutualized aspect and redistributive ", points out this expert.

If the pitfall can be resolved by adopting an equal distribution key for TV rights, the current climate is not one of solidarity among the big clubs ...

In the midst of the crisis, between the withdrawal of Mediapro and the pandemic, the LFP did not include the "PPV", less secure in terms of fixed income, in its urgently mounted market consultation, the outcome of which is scheduled for Monday .

However, it is looking into the question: an OTT channel belonging to the LFP, "MyLigue1", was initially in the pipeline for the first tests in the summer of 2020, in particular for countries where French football was not broadcast, like Belgium.

But the coronavirus has postponed its launch, which would also represent serious costs.

"All avenues are to be explored, but we are trying to reduce the charges, it is not to create new ones", swept on Europe 1 Jean-Pierre Caillot, president of Reims, in mid-January.

"French football unfortunately does not have time to wait" for the end of the cycle of domestic rights, expiring in 2024, warns Arnaud Simon.

"When you're in survival mode, it's hard to be in conquest mode as well."

© 2021 AFP