From late tender to DAZN’s shaky communication, reasons to fear a fiasco

The British platform has acquired the broadcasting rights for the majority of matches, but must quickly ensure a return on investment, with the ambitious objective of attracting 1.5 million subscribers in six months.

How to avoid the self-fulfilling prophecy? Scalded by the Mediapro precedent, supporters and observers alike are promising DAZN a fiasco. The British sports streaming platform has won the broadcasting rights to eight Ligue 1 matches out of nine each week for 400 million euros per season. The Saturday match at 5 p.m. is reserved for beIN Sports, for a check of 100 million euros per year until 2029.

But part of the target audience does not hide its skepticism about the offer, as evidenced by the virality of #BoycottDAZN on X (formerly Twitter), while the Professional Football League (LFP) took care to include in the contract an exit clause after two years, if the threshold of 1.5 million subscribers is not reached.

In its defense, DAZN only inherited the television rights on August 1, two weeks before the first day of the championship. A welcome outcome, after an interminable saga that weighed on the finances of Ligue 1 clubs, but which above all plunged viewers into confusion. Yet another new platform, after Mediapro’s Téléfoot channel, at 25 euros per month and stillborn six months later, then Prime Video, which had taken advantage of the opportunity to enrich its bouquet.

To find visibility and quickly pick up subscribers, DAZN has ensured wide distribution: “They are multiplying the platforms: Amazon, Canal, Free… It is the cumulative audience that they are looking for, with a diversification of offers”explains Lionel Maltese, lecturer in marketing and sports management at the University of Aix-Marseille. While waiting, no doubt, to find agreements for combined subscriptions with operators or other channels: “I hope we will have the opportunity to create a joint DAZN-beIN subscription to offer all of our offers in a single package at an attractive price”confided Shay Segev, CEO of DAZN, to The Team Wednesday August 14.

It is precisely DAZN’s pricing offer that is attracting criticism: 14.99 euros per month for one match per week (without the possibility of choosing), 29.99 euros per month for the eight matches, but with a one-year commitment (so with several months without matches in the summer), or 39.99 euros per month without commitment. The Ligue 1 Pass from Prime Video, for the same rights concerning the French championship, cost 21.98 euros per month. It was without commitment and no billing was done during the summer. Lionel Maltese doubts that the British media will stop there: “It’s going to be à la carte, there’s going to be loads of offers to get the maximum audience. But will everyone pay 29.99 euros? I doubt it.”

DAZN’s communication does not help. On its X account, the platform – who is still in the process of setting up the French branch of its editorial team – communicates clumsily to say the least, trying to create excitement for the first day around players who are nevertheless suspended (Edon Zhegrova, Teddy Teuma). Ironically, four hours before the first match of the championship, the media’s X account was itself suspended. On its site, it’s not much better: the logo used for AS Monaco was once that of its basketball club, the “Roca Team”.

The communication targets an increasingly younger audience, adapted to major partners (sports betting sites, fast-food or home delivery chains) and with several contributors experienced in social networks (the comedian Paul de Saint-Sernin, the columnist Walid Acherchour), but is rightly criticized for its heart of target.

However, not all errors are necessarily to be found on DAZN’s side: “Ligue 1 has not worked on the productbelieves Lionel Maltese. We’re on the same thing as in previous years, except that we’re changing the broadcaster. For now, I don’t see too much innovation or content that can serve as bait. You have more promotion on platforms and offers than on matches.”

The “League of Talents” brand has never really been adopted and is not without its fair share of mockery by the French themselves. The departure of the only star, Kylian Mbappé, and the ever-increasing economic domination of Paris Saint-Germain do not help, as does the lack of prestigious recruitment, directly linked to the loss of revenue from TV rights.

“Generating interest in Ligue 1 is not the broadcasters’ job”Lionel Maltese says. It is clear that the French championship no longer really arouses curiosity beyond its borders, since its broadcasting rights have not yet found a buyer in England, Italy or Spain.