The new Champions League starts all this week, with a festival of matches that Canal+ has decided to cover everything. Exceptional rights and copious revenues for the clubs concerned.
Canal+ is going from tears to laughter. For the first time in its history, the encrypted channel is not broadcasting Ligue 1 this season, leaving DAZN and BeIN Sports to share the French championship posters without having participated in the call for tenders, and having almost succeeded in its secondary mission of complicating Vincent Labrune's task in this quest for a billion euros that turned into a fiasco. At the same time, Vincent Bolloré's channel has taken power in Europe, recruiting all the Champions League matches, and there are more of them than ever. With four French clubs involved, and a new format with a regular season phase and a more classic final phase afterwards, the Champions League 2.0, while its format had hardly been touched for 30 years, will provoke a resurgence of interest in its first phase which was indeed becoming quite monotonous.
Canal+ puts more than DAZN
In total, 546 matches will take place with this giant ranking where everyone will be concerned until the last day or almost. No more groups folded from the 4th day, with turnover and few matches. Now, UEFA's idea of integrating more teams and facilitating clashes from the start of the game allows to restore immediate interest. To satisfy football fans and compensate for the loss of Ligue 1, Canal+ has decided to go all out like never before. Thus, the channel has added 18 additional channels to be able to broadcast all the matches, the smallest match being available, including those who want to follow at all costs a Real Madrid – Stuttgart, or a less sexy Sparta Prague – Salzburg.
L'Equipe specifies that in order to set up this exceptional system, Canal+ has bet very big, and even if it is not the soap opera of Ligue 1, the Vivendi group channel has paid more money for the European Cup (480 ME) than DAZN for Ligue 1 (400 ME). A strategic choice that highlights the biggest matches in Europe, and not a Ligue 1 in dire straits, and whose representatives will be closely scrutinized because in addition to PSG, Monaco, Brest and Lille will be there with very different ambitions. First of all, to recover part of the incredible bonuses promised by UEFA, with 4 billion euros of revenue announced, almost double the previous versions.
