Major broadcasting change as Amazon Prime secure more football coverage amid ongoing £500million compensation row
AMAZON Prime Video have secured rights to show Ligue 1 football on their platform.
The streamer will offer a selection of matches from the French top flight.
Ligue 1 has been without a UK broadcast partner since the end of last season.
Previously, TNT Sports showed most of their matches.
But following the conclusion of the 2023-24 season, which coincided with Kylian Mbappe‘s Paris Saint-Germain departure, TNT did not renew their deal.
This left Ligue 1 without a UK broadcast partner going into the season.
They subsequently launched Ligue 1 Pass, a streaming service on which fans can watch all matches either live or on demand, costing £9.99 per month or £79.99 for the full season.
Fans will now be able to watch some matches on Prime Video, although not for free.
Games shown through Prime will cost £2.49 each to watch via pay-per-view, with viewers not required to hold a Prime subscription.
The streamer will target the biggest matches, with only two available on Prime this weekend.
Auxerre’s clash with Marseille will kick off Prime’s coverage on Saturday night, while they will also show Lyon vs PSG on Sunday.
Prime have also confirmed that they will broadcast Monaco vs Reims on February 28, PSG vs Lille on March 1 and Marseille vs Nantes on March 2.
LEGAL FIGHT
French domestic football‘s governing body, the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP), finds itself embroiled in a legal battle regarding Ligue 1’s domestic rights.
Between 2021 and 2024, the league was broadcast in France by Amazon Prime Video and Canal+.
With the likes of Mbappe, as well as Lionel Messi and Neymar, having departed the league in that time, the LFP struggled to sell their TV rights at a similar price.
In the end they agreed to four-year deals with DAZN and beIN Sports at 10 per cent less than they were previously receiving.
London-based DAZN agreed to pay £334million per year to show eight of the nine matches each weekend.
While beIN committed to pay £83m per year to show the remaining game.
The combined £417m received from the two networks is around half of what Mediapro had agreed to pay from 2020 onwards, in a deal that collapsed just five months later.
This week, DAZN were due to pay their latest £58m instalment to the LFP.
They are claimed to have only paid half of the sum due to various gripes against the governing body.
DAZN reportedly feel that the LFP have not made big enough efforts to shut down illegal streaming of matches, while they are also claimed to believe that some clubs have not made sufficient efforts to provide extra content.
Reports in France claim that DAZN have gathered 400,000 subscribers in the country, having targeted 1.5 million after completing the deal.
It is believed that if the streaming platform does not reach its target by this December, they can trigger a break clause in the deal for the end of next season.
Per The Athletic, the LFP have gone to court in order to “obtain, as a matter of urgency, an order against DAZN to pay the sums stipulated in the contract and an injunction to perform all of its contractual obligations”.
They have also outlined their hopes to reach an “amicable outcome”.
French outlet RMC Sport, meanwhile, report that DAZN have also gone to court, demanding £500m for a “breach” of contract and “market dishonesty”.
The affair could be set to rumble on for months.