On May 5, news came from Hupu that a famous reporter from the French media L’Equipe named Arnaud Hermant wrote a column about the broadcast revenue of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2.
The much-anticipated email, which was sent out a few weeks ago, confirms that Ligue 1 clubs' television revenue will remain sluggish in the 2026-2027 season, and that club executives will need to be careful and cautious to avoid budget overruns.
This past weekend, the French Professional Football League, also known as the LFP, sent various clubs a guideline on the distribution of audiovisual rights for next season. The LFP also specifically emphasized that this guideline is "for reference only and is tentatively determined." Based on the number of subscribers to the league's official channel Ligue 1+ and the growth of international broadcast rights revenue, the relevant forecast data may fluctuate, either upward or downward.
Clubs will use the 21-page document as a basis when preparing their budgets, ahead of a hearing before French football's financial control body (DNCG) at the end of the year. The second pillar of French professional football revenue, player transactions, no longer exists.
This is true. If there is no platform (like Disney, Paramount or Apple TV+) to acquire the broadcast rights of the French Ligue 1 (assuming that the broadcast rights are really returned to the market soon as the outgoing LFP Media CEO Nicolas de Tavernoste predicts), then in the short term, there is basically no possibility of significant growth in the Ligue 1 league.
All parties hope to renegotiate the distribution of European broadcast rights.
LFP Media did not adopt the Ligue 1+ business plan, which was formulated at the beginning of last season and was disclosed by L'Equipe on July 3, in order to develop its own distribution strategy.
LFP's commercial subsidiary predicts that during the 2026-2027 season, Ligue 1+ will have 1.5 million subscribers and revenue of 320 million euros. The forecast takes into account the purchase of rights to Game 9 from beIN, as well as increases in subscription prices.
Industry experts believe that the addition of the ninth game should "automatically" attract almost 30% of new subscribers, which is 200,000 to 300,000. Currently, Ligue 1's subscriber base fluctuates around one million, and has declined in recent weeks.
League broadcasters, in the forecast sent to clubs, expect to earn 170.1 million euros in revenue, which is higher than this season's 142 million euros. In addition, they also need 1 million euros from French television and 137.6 million euros from international broadcast rights.
All French Ligue 1 clubs participating in the distribution of international broadcast rights income can get a share of only 6.5 million euros, and most of the related income goes to teams with UEFA European competition coefficients.
In the next few weeks, all parties will discuss this distribution plan. The situation is like this. Some clubs have the idea of modifying the plan. Lille and Brest are opposed to modifying the plan. However, wealthy clubs such as Paris Saint-Germain, Marseille and Lyon are more inclined to reallocate the part of the income that should have been allocated to European clubs.
According to the preliminary estimates of the French Professional Football League (LFP), in the 2026-2027 season, the revenue from domestic and international broadcast rights is expected to reach 412.2 million euros. Among this, it is necessary to remove the expenditure of 121.4 million euros, and also exclude the share of CVC, the founding fund of LFP Media, which is 65.5 million euros.
In addition, the 29.2 million euros allocated to Ligue 2 clubs and the 12 million euros allocated to relegated clubs must be deducted. The final net amount allocated to Ligue 1 clubs is 184.1 million euros. However, not all of this money is distributed to all clubs.
Just because the 71.6 million euros are reserved for clubs with UEFA numbers, the 18 Ligue 1 clubs can only share 112.5 million euros.
Therefore, based solely on domestic revenue, and considering all allocation criteria, including the season ranking, the ranking of the past five seasons, and the reputation ranking based on the number of high-quality matches broadcast over the past five seasons, in this case, the club at the top of the ranking is expected to receive 11.7 million euros, while the club at the bottom of the ranking is estimated to receive 3.6 million euros.
Judging from the results of the simulation at the end of September 2025, this season, the club at the top of the rankings may receive 12 million euros in domestic broadcast rights income. However, the clubs at the bottom of the rankings will receive 3.7 million euros.
Therefore, clubs can be somewhat relieved that the revenue from the 2026-2027 season should be similar to this season. This situation is possible thanks to the allocation of 63.5 million euros from the Reserve Fund.