French football fans are increasingly abandoning legal television subscriptions for illegal IPTV streaming boxes, as the cost of watching the full range of European football in France climbs to roughly 816 euros a year across four separate services, according to 20 Minutes.
To cover the Premier League, Ligue 1, Serie A, La Liga, the Bundesliga and Europe's club competitions this season, viewers need Canal+ Sport, beIN Sports, DAZN and Ligue 1+, at a combined cost of 68 euros a month.
Canal+ Sport carries the Premier League, the Champions League, the Europa League and the Conference League. BeIN Sports has Ligue 2, the Coupe de France and the Bundesliga. DAZN holds Serie A and La Liga. Ligue 1+ shows Ligue 1.
Against that bill, IPTV boxes, small devices plugged into a television that unlock thousands of general and sports channels along with Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+, cost illegal users between 30 and 50 euros a year.
This year's TV rights market has been calmer than in previous seasons, with the main change being beIN Sports losing La Liga to DAZN. Many subscribers questioned whether to keep paying for beIN Sports just to watch a handful of Bundesliga matches a season, particularly since Ligue 1's Saturday afternoon fixture also moved over to Ligue 1+.
Fragmentation and its costs
Sports economist Jean-Pascal Gayant said the fragmentation of the offer has not really worsened. He said Ligue 1+ picking up the last match it was missing actually adds coherence and makes the package a little simpler for consumers.
Gayant estimated that piracy costs the Ligue de Football Professionnel and French clubs about 400 million euros a season. He described piracy as a form of arbitrage between cost and risk, saying many consumers would be willing to pay for a subscription if the offer were more reasonable, but switch to piracy because it is so fragmented and expensive. He said it remains to be seen whether France's new anti-piracy law will address the problem.
A Rennes fan explains the switch
Antoine, a Stade Rennais supporter, started using IPTV a week ago. He said he had originally planned to buy a Ligue 1+ subscription with a friend, as he had the previous year, and the pair had compared DAZN and Ligue 1 packages with and without Disney+, coming out at around 250 euros a year, on top of match tickets at the Roazhon Park, where seats now rarely cost less than 40 euros. The following weekend, a friend offered him IPTV for 30 euros a year, and he said the decision was quickly made.
Antoine said the price made the choice worthwhile and that the risk of being caught was relatively low given the limited resources devoted to enforcement by the French state through the broadcasting regulator Arcom.
Seven years in the shadows
Simon has used IPTV for nearly seven years, since the start of the fragmentation of French football's TV rights, when Canal+ and beIN Sports first began splitting Ligue 1 broadcasts between them. He said he found the situation deeply unfair, a feeling he believes is shared by many IPTV users, and that neither clubs, the League nor broadcasters ever took supporters' views into account. He said they decided on the fragmented broadcasting arrangement without consulting fans, effectively forcing supporters to pay for an extra subscription just to follow their team.
IPTV here to stay
Simon said he is fully aware he is acting illegally but believes he is within his rights. He pointed to what he called the excessive financialisation of football, with shirts, stadium seats and events all becoming more expensive, and said that without IPTV he could not afford even the minimum of following his team on television.
Antoine acknowledged that Ligue 1+'s 15-euro-a-month offer is attractive on its own, but said it was the overall cost of the full European football package that pushed him toward IPTV. He said it could be viewed as economic disobedience, but that he felt there was no consideration for the means and needs of French consumers, and that fans were simply trying to find a solution better suited to their budgets and their passion for the game.
Simon has not forgotten what he believes led French football into this situation, recalling the billion euros in TV rights once promised by broadcaster Mediapro, a deal that collapsed and dragged the league and its clubs into crisis. He cited a string of decisions, including the Mediapro collapse, the sale of a stake in Ligue 1's commercial rights to investment firm CVC, the cost of the League's new headquarters, and an increase in the League president's salary, arguing that any example should come from the top. He said he sees no sign of awareness from football's leadership, so he refuses to fund what he called their mistakes, preferring to lose access to matches rather than pay for them.
What comes next
Gayant said the shortfall of about 400 million euros a season for the League and clubs is not negligible, but that cracking down on piracy will not bring back the billion euros once promised by Mediapro. What it would take to persuade pirate viewers to return to legal services remains an open question. As long as the offer stays this fragmented and prices remain high, no dramatic change is likely, and the estimated eight million IPTV boxes already installed in French homes could keep rising.
