PSG on the radio

Paid football on TV, it would have paid off… How many will they be in front of their post this evening to watch the Manchester City - PSG match?

Probably about as much as the first leg.

Last week, RMC Sport, which holds the rights to the Champions League until the end of the season, attracted 1.6 million viewers on average and 2.4 million cumulatively.

Even taking into account the smart kids who cheat thanks to streaming (they would be around a million), it's not much for an event of this importance. We are far, very far, from the scores of the French football team on TF 1 (around 6 million people) or even those of rugby on France 2 during the last Six Nations Tournament (more than 6 million) . In a large chain, the audience potential of this meeting is estimated at 8 million individuals.

So there is a problem. Most football fans will be deprived of one of the biggest events of the season. Unless you temporarily subscribe to RMC Sport for the minimum sum of 25 €. The temptation would be great to overwhelm this media created in 2016 by the Altice group (SFR, BFMTV, RMC…) which, after having won over 2 million subscribers, quickly stopped its investments.

But, on closer inspection, professional football also has its share of responsibility. Gourmet, it has become too expensive for generalist channels. It has therefore multiplied the deals with new paid players: alongside Canal + have successively appeared BeIN Sports, RMC Sport and Mediapro. The idea was to use competition to increase resources and finance a very high standard of living. As always in economics, the wallet rules. Consumers have made trade-offs between the different offers. And the hearings, weighed down moreover by the absence of the public in the stadiums, sagged. This is why many of us will be watching PSG this evening… on the radio.