With just weeks to go before the start of the new season, the LFP has finally received two bids for the domestic rights to Ligue 1 football.First, L’Equipe reported DAZN had entered the auction with a €375 million bod for 8 of the 9 matches available in each matchday.Separately, RMC revealed Warner Bros Discovery would take all available matches to bolster its Max streaming platform that launched in the French market last month. The Warner Bros. Discovery proposal would be subject to the number of subcribers, but could bring the Ligue up to €600 million.The LFP has been working for months on a new broadcaster and now has until August 16 to find a solution. The current deal with Amazon – one mired in controversy – expired at the end of last season.The League has even considered launching its own channel with all Ligue 1 matches available for a monthly €25 fee.The clubs are said to prefer the option of a tie-up with Warner Bros. Discovery, rather than take on the risk of setting up their own broadcast channel, even though the plans are said to be well advanced. Warner Bros. Discovery would charge €27.99 a month for a package that would also include the rest of the Max catalogue.Neither Canal plus nor its partner BeIn Sport have so far tabled a bid.In 2018, LFP sold the rights to the Chinese-backed Mediapro for a record £800 million, freezing out long-standing partner Canal+. But the choice of the unproven company proved to be disastrous when in the pandemic hit season of 2020 Mediapro ceased payments.LFP then made an agreement with Amazon, further enraging Canal when it emerged the cut price deal with Amazon worked out as being less that the Vivendi unit had paid for the smaller package under license from beIN.
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