Since August 2020, Canal+ lost the meeting which punctuated his Sunday evenings: the poster of the Ligue 1 football day. While it was retransmitted successively on the ephemeral Téléfoot and on the service Prime Videothe encrypted channel quickly found a solution.
And took advantage of the opportunity to promote rugby and the Top 14 a little more, by installing it on this time slot. The French rugby championship is now one of the strong markers of the channel’s sports offering, with the European Football Cups (all of the matches of which it will broadcast at the start of the school year), Formula 1 and Moto GP . The channel’s communication objective is clear: do everything to give the impression that Ligue 1 is not essential to it.
Rights extended until 2032
The Top 14 final between Toulouse and Bordeaux-Bègles, scheduled for Friday June 28 exceptionally in Marseille, ends the season. If it will also be broadcast on France 2 from 8:40 p.m., Canal+ pulls out all the stops with a studio show starting at 7:30 p.m., the pre-match at 8:30 p.m., then the match (9 p.m.) and its debrief (11:20 p.m.). The return match of the regular season attracted 726,000 spectators, with a peak of over a million, but the figures for a final are incomparable.
A follow-up appreciated by the LNR, which organizes the championship. The two interlocutors also extended their collaboration, since the broadcasting lease was extended in May until 2032. Canal+ obtained all the lots, including ProD2, increasing the amount to 129 million euros per year for the Top 14 (+ 13%) and 11 million euros for the Pro D2 (+ 36%).
“Because he has always been there for us, we will always be there for French rugby”, commented Maxime Saada, chairman of the group’s board of directors. Words which resonate even more when a month and a half before the resumption of Ligue 1, the rights have still not been allocated. And that the pay channel has made a point of not offering a direct offer.
Top 14 Final, on Canal+ from 7:30 p.m. and on France 2 at 9 p.m.
