whose fault is it?

On the eve of the resumption of the Portuguese Championship, no French broadcaster confiscated the broadcasting rights of Liga Portugal Betclic.

To follow Liga Portugal Betclic this season, it will be necessary to rely on foreign channels. Despite the fact that there are one and a half million people of Portuguese descent living in France, no French broadcaster wanted to take over the TV broadcast rights to Liga Portugal Betclic matches, as the newspaper recently revealed. the team.

The end of Portuguese football on RMC?

Since 2016 and the launch of RMC Sport, it is this channel of the Altice group that has taken over the rights to Portuguese football, broadcasting the biggest first-class championship posters every week. However, the payment channel is about to take a decisive turn, and it has been underway for several months already.

In fact, RMC Sport is gradually inclining to withdraw its football offer. As announced by L’Equipe, the sports channel has to present its European bid for the past year, and then move away from the round ball. In vogue for a few years, with the legalization of MMA in France in particular, combat sports have the wind in the sails of RMC Sport. Thus, the Altice Group chain should prefer the rights to the largest organizations in the field, such as the UFC or Bellator, at the expense of the football licenses it had until then.

closed door

For many Portuguese football watchers, this is the lesser of two evils. In fact, there are many who already have Portuguese channels such as Sport TV, which also offer a more complete offer than what RMC Sport has been able to offer in recent years, regarding the Portuguese championship.

However, this strategic decision by the French broadcasters not to be stationed in Portuguese football undermines the accessibility of Liga Portugal Betclic for a very large part of the population. Luso’s large number of descendants, who are not always comfortable with the Portuguese language, will have more difficulty following the championship of their home country.

But even so, many football fans, who do not have any special connection to Portugal, but are still curious to open themselves up to this tournament, which offers so many talents, will also have more difficulty feeding their curiosity.

For example, I was watching it when I came across a match… I know I wouldn’t have the process of searching for a link to watch the match.

– MyCase FC 📱 (myCaseFC) August 9, 2023

In other words, this sudden stop in broadcasting the Portuguese football elite in France undermines access to this league, which is often despised in France.

whose fault is it?

However, this position is nothing but frivolous. If this is a real blow to the media coverage of Portuguese football in France, it seems necessary to question the reasons for this strategic choice.

Unlike the English Premier League or Ligue 1, La Liga Portugal is suffering a real loss of interest from European football observers. The result was explained by various factors specific to this first national division.

Out of the 21 editions of the Portuguese top flight, only one has been won by the two Portuguese football giants, namely Benfica and Porto. A stunning statistic, which indicates the regional dominance of these two rivals in national football, but also attests to the huge disparities that exist in this tournament. Inequality that inevitably undermines spectator interest in the competition. At the same time, the Premier League has at least 6 different winners. 7 for Ligue 1 Ligue 1.

Beyond this lack of suspense in the title race, which often boils down to a head-to-head showdown between the country’s two strongest clubs, the Portuguese championship suffers from a lack of real aesthetic suggestion delivered to the squad. view. In February 2022, CIES indicated that Liga Portugal Betclic was only 31st of the European leagues that had the most useful playing time. Thus, the study revealed that during a match in the Portuguese first division, the ball rolled on average only 57 minutes, out of the 90 minutes that marked the kick-off from the final whistle.

Inevitable inner work

If the obvious reaction amounts to blaming French broadcasters for wanting to overstep their bounds when it came time to award TV rights to Portuguese professional clubs, reflection must inevitably cross so that we can witness a true paradigm shift.

Indeed, it is up to the highest authorities of Portuguese football to find solutions to increase the overall competitiveness of the tournament, thus regaining its interest in the eyes of the fans, observers and therefore the broadcasters. Because if France, which has at least a million and a half people of Portuguese origin within its walls, lacks interest in Portuguese football, what other country can pay attention to it?

It now seems that internal work on a large scale is inevitable, because it also enters into an economic logic. With the centralization of television rights in Portugal approaching, the League must make the most of its products, including with foreign broadcasters, in order to recover the largest sum for redistribution to the various clubs in the tournament.

In a particularly competitive environment, where some leagues in Europe and elsewhere manage to stand out and experience a significant increase in interest in the eyes of broadcasters, this task will be very complicated.

Image credit: IconSport