Salma Hayek, weather and girls from Le Havre… Textor's surprising recipe for promoting Ligue 1

Exceptional guest of the show Rothen ignites this Monday on RMC, John Textor gave some ideas for better selling the Ligue 1 product, such as telling stories about the players in the championship.

At the helm of Olympique Lyonnais since December 2022, John Textor wants to bring a fresh perspective to highlight the French championship and thus have “more competitiveness” from a sporting point of view, with a “battle for the title of champion every year. If PSG outrageously dominates the national domain since the arrival of QSI in 2011, the American businessman wants to offer the public a championship like the Premier League, “with several very strong teams at the top of the ranking “, as he explains exclusively in the show Rothen ignites this Monday on RMC.

“The quality of the product is terrible, there is no added value in production. Regardless of the broadcaster, the League must demand broadcasting standards all over the world,” adds the OL boss.

“The product shown by the League is zero”

But how can we make Ligue 1 attractive? John Textor gives the first elements of an answer. “We have to tell stories. Why watch this match? Le Havre for example, where is it? In Normandy? What's the weather like? Are the girls pretty? Same for Paris FC with a billionaire who buys him… Who is he? Who does he get along with or not? The wife of the owner of Rennes is Salma Hayek, that too we should be able to talk to me about the cities, the people. players”, suggests the president Lyonnais.

The latter uses the example of the NBA, which makes the link “between sport, clothing, music and culture” to promote its product. “That’s it vibe. We should do something like this in football. The product we show to the world must be sexy, and everyone loves France too. You love to make fun of us Americans: we are obese, we dress badly, we buy anything and everything when we are in France… But we love France! So why can't we represent France on television, on the radio? Because the product shown by the League on television, generally speaking, is rubbish. Nobody cares, we don't make any money from it. So let the product be better and maybe people will watch it.” It remains to be seen whether the LFP will be receptive to these curious proposals.