Today, I found an interesting article about TV rights in France. In fact, the French newspaper Libération published a report about how much the different TV stations pay for getting the rights to broadcast different sporting events.
Of course, soccer is the Number one, and this with an enormous gap. 600mio Euro for the first division and 15mio for the second are paid. Additionally, 45mio is the value of the National team and the French Cup has a value of 14mio.
Second highest ranked sport is Rugby with 30mio Euro per year. The list continues with Tennis and Cycling and you will find Basketball on the fifth place. The whole package for the National team and the first division is worth 2mio Euro per year. Not a lot but also not too bad if you compare with other countries. One the other hand, this amount has been stable for about 10 years while other team sports like rugby have increased their TV revenues by 6 over the same period.
In the French basketball world, it is a common fact that the discussion about the non-existence of good working marketing and sales structures are daily. These figures prove that in fact there is a huge gap now between the team sport number 2 (Rugby) and number 3 (Basketball), at least in terms of TV revenues. What this means for the success of the different teams and the future of the sport in general is easy to foresee. Basketball will never catch up the advantage that Rugby has built over the last decade.
Sad situation for a country that has one of the most interesting potential in terms of developing world class basketball players.
