Chinese-owned Mediapro wins French Ligue 1 soccer broadcasting rights

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Europe

Chinese-owned Mediapro has strengthened its presence in European sports broadcasting by snapping up the rights to broadcast France's top football league, Ligue 1, highlighting the growing interest in China for European football.

Majority-owned by Chinese private equity fund Orient Hontai, Mediapro on Tuesday won the rights to broadcast the games from 2020 to 2024 in an auction, beating Vivendi's French broadcaster Canal Plus which has shown Ligue 1 matches since 1984.

Annual broadcasting rights for the championship, including lower level packages of the match bundles, which Mediapro did not bid for, will reach a record 1.15 billion euros (about 1.33 billion US dollars), a 60 percent jump over the previous five-year period.

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The new deal brings the French league ahead of its rivals of Spain and Italy but slightly behind Germany, while the English Premier League remains well ahead with 2.3 billion euros worth of existing the deal per season for the 2016-19 period.

Carlos Canto, a professor at Spanish business school ESADE who focuses on the economics of sports, told AFP that Mediapro, the Barcelona-based production company’s sudden interest in the French league is due to the Chinese company’s acquisition.

"Interest in French football and Ligue 1 matches is growing, especially in China, thanks to teams like Paris Saint-Germain, Lyon or Marseille, and of course the arrival of great players like Neymar," said Canto.

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In a sign of the growing interest in Asia in French football, a Paris Saint-Germain-Nice match in March was scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on a Sunday, an unusual time in France but which meant it could air during prime time in China.

(With input from AFP)