Why TF1 isn’t betting 120 million euros on the Football World Cup | EUROtoday
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Bixente Lizarazu and Grégoire Margotton have been left speechless after they realized that TF1 wouldn’t broadcast the 2026 and 2030 World Cups? Did they are saying to themselves: “Chic, we’ll be able to spend the July holidays with family!” » ? Did they as an alternative supply their providers to Nicolas de Tavernost, the boss of the M6 group, who received the tv rights for France for the largest worldwide soccer competitors? We can think about their disappointment.
One factor is definite: the truth that TF1, the channel of the Blues' first coronation in 1998 – and Thierry Roland's “I think after seeing that, we can die in peace” – doesn’t broadcast a World Cup is an occasion in itself. Since the creation of the channel in 1975, the entrance web page has at all times taken into consideration the competitors. This, notably for questions of status linked to his management within the PAF. A bit like Canal+, connected to its picture as a historic associate of French Ligue 1. Until the corporate fell out with the Professional Football League and determined to not take part in its name for tenders.
The financial actuality
At TF1 headquarters, the information saddened many staff. The most lucid have resigned themselves. “We weren't going to buy a Ferrari and find ourselves on the street the next day,” sums up considered one of them. Today, French tv channels monitor their spending far more. Faced with fierce competitors from streaming platforms which might be stealing their loyal followers, they’re taking good care of their profitability. If they produce content material, so long as it’s accessible over time. This is the case for fiction and different collection, however not for soccer matches.
“There is an economic reality that everyone is aware of,” we clarify within the corridors of TF1. The group's CEO Rodolphe Belmer intends to dedicate a big a part of the investments to accelerating streaming with the TF1 + platform, launched originally of January. During the presentation of the group's annual outcomes, he promised to protect working margins and pay shareholders “growing or stable” dividends within the coming years.
A World Cup value 120 million euros
For the channel, constructing viewers rankings on linear tv now not is smart. Certainly, they can help you parade the day after a match adopted by hundreds of thousands of French individuals. But they don’t “monetize” themselves sufficiently by bringing cash into the corporate. Broadcasting a World Cup is dear and by no means worthwhile, even when the Blues go to the ultimate. The 2022 version would have value TF1 round 70 million euros. The remaining misplaced by France to Argentina was adopted by greater than 24 million individuals and gross promoting revenues would have exceeded 100 million euros (a a lot decrease quantity in internet phrases, subsequently).
According to our data, M6 would have paid round 120 million euros to convey again in its bag the rights to 54 of essentially the most stunning posters of every competitors, which can now embody 104 matches in complete, in comparison with 64 for earlier editions – 120 million euros by version. Faced with such a sum, the Bouygues subsidiary didn’t want to outbid for the rights to the sporting occasion organized in 2026 within the United States, Canada and Mexico in 2026 and in Europe (Spain, Portugal), Africa ( Morocco) and South America (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay) in 2030. In addition, TF1 doesn’t need to share rights with M6, specified Nicolas de Tavernost on RTL.
For the monetary evaluation agency Oddo BHF SCA, this determination “illustrates the pragmatism of the company, which does not wish to overpay for these sports rights. The logic is definitely that of the operating margin, with a focus on the most profitable rights (such as those of women's football or handball). He believes that “TF1 will be able to broadcast alternative programs, certainly with less audience, but with a significantly higher margin”.
François Pellissier, the deputy basic director for enterprise and sports activities of the TF1 group, and Julien Millereux, its sports activities director, introduced the unhealthy information to their groups this week. “Stay mobilized, we have plenty of other sporting rights to come,” they principally informed them. Deprived of the World Cup, the entrance web page will console itself with a collection of different soccer rights: these of the French soccer workforce till 2028, the exclusivity of unencrypted matches for Euro 2028 and the Euro ladies's 2025.
https://www.lepoint.fr/economie/pourquoi-tf1-ne-mise-pas-120-millions-d-euros-sur-la-coupe-du-monde-de-football-07-03-2024-2554468_28.php