A match like the classic between Marsella Olympic and PSG, whose echo will be greater with the presence of Messi and its six Ballon d’Or, can help to better sell the League 1 outside France in the next cycle of rights.
Last year, in the 1-0 victory of the Marsella at Princes Park, on September 13, 2020, some five million viewers they had followed the game internationally, “highlight” of a 2020-2021 season where the League 1, broadcast by 55 channels in 208 territories, according to the LFP, generated a cumulative audience of 580 million viewers, an increase of 20%.
“The trend could continue into the 2021-2022 season, which will see Ligue 1 benefit from unprecedented international coverage.”, states the LFP in a communication transmitted to the AFP, congratulating itself on having new large-scale diffusers in China (Migu), in India (Viacom18), en Brazil (ESPN), in Holland (Ziggo) o and Italy (Sky).
This influx of diffusers “it will significantly increase the scope of the championship internationally”, points out the League 1, which claims to measure the effects already.
Thus, the string YouTube in English of the League 1 showed record figures with a growth of more than 50% in the number of “subscribers since the beginning of the season and 12 million views only in August”.
And the first game of Messi with the PSG, on Reims on August 29 (2-0), smashed the audience record of the League 1 abroad with more than 14 million viewers, according to LFP.
In any case, the room for progression is immense. By way of comparison, the Spanish League claims at least 650 million potential viewers “all over the world” for the classic Barcelona-Real Madrid Sunday, making sure to have “the most followed club game” of the planet.
Now the League 1, disseminated in China by the public CCTV channel, it has 1 billion viewers potentials.
But even in Spain, chain Four decided to spread the classic OM-PSG live and open on Sunday, with comments from former striker Fernando Morientes, who played in Marseille (2009-10).
Four was encouraged by the hearings of Telecinco (another chain of the Mediaset group) for the Reims-PSG, become the soccer match of a foreign championship most followed in the history of Spanish television, with 2.2 million average viewers, with peaks of 6.7 million, according to Mediaset.
“Obviously, the interest in Spain is higher now, as the figures from Messi’s first game against Reims have proven”, affirms to the AFP a communication manager of the Kosmos group, led by Gerard Piqué, who owns the marketing rights of the League 1 on Spain. “There should be at least as many people (on Sunday) than in that game. The Spanish public consumes French football, because it consumes its stars.”
On Brazil, “Le Classique” has been around for several years, especially since Neymar plays in the Parisian club.
For Brazilian viewers, more than the game OM-PSG, it is the Parisian club that attracts attention, due to the presence of Neymar and Messi. But the Brazilian press also follows the results of the IF from Jorge Sampaoli, since the Argentine coach directed Santos and Atletico Mineiro.
On England, a country little follower of foreign football, the diffuser of the League 1BT Sports will give priority to the Italian clash on Sunday Inter-Juventus on his BT Sports 1 channel, while the OM-PSG it goes through BT Sports 2.
According to a YouGov poll published this week, only 12% of British football fans show interest in the League 1, while 23% say they are interested in the Spanish League.
And in Italy, the match broadcast by Sky may suffer from the media competition of two major sporting events: the last grand prize MotoGP icon in Italy Valentino Rossi and the Inter-Juve on A league, at the same time as the Olympic Marsella-PSG.
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