Every Sunday evening, the football fan who was not a Canal+ subscriber had one hope: that a goal would be scored before the channel was encrypted.
The players had to hurry: after two minutes, the image was crossed out.
The party was over.
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Often nothing happened.
Canal+, 1, football fan, 0. The Sunday evening game was an institution for a long time.
Broadcast between 8:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., the meeting was the poster for the day of Ligue 1. We saw a lot of Olympique de Marseille, a lot of PSG, a little Bordeaux, Nantes or Monaco, and little of all the others.
Special device
For 36 years, no doubt: this match was broadcast on Canal+.
In 1984, Charles Biétry, then director of sports for the encrypted channel, had great ambitions and revolutionized the broadcasting of sport in France.
The First Division, favorite sports soap opera of the French, must make people dream.
After Nantes-Monaco was broadcast on November 9, 1984 (a Friday), the poster took up residence on Sunday.
A PSG-OM (or vice versa) is of particular interest: airtime two or three hours before, special device with more sophisticated cameras than each other, consequent post-match.
Audiences are panicking when Canal+ sees its subscriber base explode.
It must be said that the First Division thrives on rivalries between clubs and their presidents (Bez vs Tapie then Tapie vs Denisot), stars (Voller,
36 years of show
For 15 years, Canal+ renews its rights with the Professional Football League without any problem.
And when the giant TPS (founded by TF1 and M6) threatens, the encrypted channel gets its hands on the wallet, but keeps control.
In 2008, it was Orange's turn to attack the market: Canal saved Sunday evenings.
Four years later, Qatar arrives with beIN Sports.
The historic broadcaster still retains its Sunday attributes.
Honor is safe.
Charles Biétry and Michel Denisot for a match in the French championship.
JACQUES DEMARTHON-AFP
For 36 years, Sunday alternates between incredible spectacle (the 5-5 between Olympique Lyonnais and OM in 2009), insane surprises and monumental purges.
In the comments, the great voices follow one another.
There are the pioneers Biétry and Denisot, the late Thierry Gilardi, the enthusiastic Denis Balbir, the expert Grégoire Margotton and the stunning Stéphane Guy.
We are enthusiastic about OM from Boli, PSG from Weah, Monaco from Trezeguet, OL from Anderson, Bordeaux from Gourcuff or Auxerre from Cissé.
The decade of domination of Paris Saint-Germain (Ibrahimovic version) reinforces the shocks at the top where more than two million viewers are present.
The party is over
In 2018, earthquake: Canal+ leaves empty-handed the Ligue 1 call for tenders. No more encrypted Sundays from August 2020. Mediapro snatched the flagship meeting and seven other matches for more than 780 million euros.
Stupor and Trembling.
It is above all the beginning of the end: Ligue 1 begins to fade from the media radar.
Téléfoot (the channel launched by Mediapro) is not full.
Women's D1 or Top 14 matches, now broadcast on Canal+, beat the shocks of Ligue 1. The Médiapro system collapsed at the end of 2020. The encrypted channel resumed its Sunday jersey before being stripped of it six months later for the benefit of Amazon.
The Sunday night game left linear television for an online platform.
Few figures circulate on the hearings (one evokes a small million for the large posters).
This is often a bad sign.
Ligue 1 is gradually fading and, more worryingly, generations are struggling to renew themselves.
They will probably never know the fervor of the goal before encryption...
