While the French football is making one euro, the English is making about 2.50. This fact underlines the difference in the economic efficiency between the French and the English competition. In the season of 2006/2007, the French professional league made 1.2 billion euros in terms of income. Football is the first business sport in France much before tennis. In this document, we are going to answer the following question: How is the French football business positioned when compared to its main competitors? In the first part, we will describe the business model of football clubs in France. In the second part, we will speak about the lack of diversification of French clubs and finally we will focus on the deregulation in the market. Between 1998 and 2005, the incomes of TV rights got multiplied by six times. More than ever, the French football is dependent on an actor: the TV channel Canal, which spent 600 million euros to buy the same. The TV rights represent 57% of its general incomes. In 2008, professionals had a happy surprise: Orange, which presented new challenges on TV, bought a part of its rights for 150 million euros.
[...] This is partly due to the fact that the towns own most of the time the stadiums and the clubs have to rent it, so they don't want to invest in something who doesn't belong to them . In this part, we are going to show, how the bad results are related to low incomes for French club. This graph shows the correlation between UEFA points and turnover. You can find a correlation except for some football clubs diversified such as Real Madrid, Juventus Turin or Bayern Munich. They developed a business model that keeps them going through bad results and not too dependent on sports results. [...]
[...] III) In a European deregulated environment, French club are penalized In order to understand the French business model of soccer, we have to understand why they are penalized when compared to other competitions. Indeed, incomes are mostly related to sports results, and so the French club, in a competitive environment, is re-competing against foreign countries in their development. French league made the choice during the 90s, to develop a regulated solidarity football. At the same time, other championships in Europe chose a deregulated environment given by Bosman the law in 1995. [...]
[...] The French soccer is less diversified as its competitors and as worst results. In the last twenty years, France won only once the champions league (Marseille in 93) and once the UEFA (PSG in whereas England, Italy and Spain are almost every year in final or semi-final. The longer they go into the competition, the more you get TV rights incomes. In the XXI century, Lyon is an exception because even if they don't win the competition, they reach semi-final or quart-final every year since 8 years. [...]
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