Amazon to take over French Ligue 1 broadcasting rights; will it impact viewers in India?

Amazon has got brocasting rights for 80% of available matches for an upfront fee of €250 million per season. Amazon Prime members across Europe will be paying €12.99 a month for Le Pass Ligue 1 channel, which will brocast over 300 matches per month. remaining 20% are with ir rivals Canal+ who to ir disappointment are paying €332 million.

Amazon recently won rights to show Champions League matches in Italy, alrey shows live football in Germany, and has rights for some English Premier League matches. 

French legend and World Cup winner Thierry Henry will be on expert panel for coverage along with Ludovic Giuly, Vitorino Hilton, and Pascal Dupraz.

Currently, in India, re is no official brocast for Ligue 1 on TV or live streaming eir as re is no mention of it on ir official website, owing to no brocast partner in country. This could however change as India is one of Amazon's biggest markets for Prime Video. 

"Beginning August 6, Prime Video Ligue 1 will exclusively brocast eight matches per week of all match-rounds of Ligue 1 Uber Eats per season for three years, including 10 top pick matches of each season," Amazon said in a statement.

"We think it is a fair price. It will make watching soccer accessible both in terms of costs and usage," Alex Green, Managing Director of Prime Video Sport Europe, told Reuters.

All of this comes after Ligue 1's record €780 million contract with Mediapro broke down after payment issues, as y failed to make payments on time.

Ligue 1 action has kicked off

On August 7, French league started with Monaco taking on Nantes which ended in a 1-1 draw owing to goals from Gelson Martins in minute 14 and Jean-Charles Castelletto in 42nd minute.

Lyon vs Brest also ended in a 1-1 draw, thanks to an Islam Slimani equaliser in 62nd minute after Irvin Cardona h given Brest le in 43rd minute.

Elsewhere, newly promoted Troyes took on PSG and gave m a run for ir money after taking le in ninth minute courtesy of a goal from Oualid El Hajjam but sly could not hold onto that le as new signing Achraf Hakimi scored in 19th minute to equalise and two minutes later, Argentine striker Mauro Icardi scored to put Parisians ahe 1-2. Troyes did not sit back and let PSG attack but inste kept on attacking, however, it was just not meant to be as PSG held on to ir slender le to win ir opening game of Ligue 1.

(Image Credits: @French_Ligue1 - Twitter/ Shutterstock)