Are super league, union and tier 1 football the most watched sports in thier countries?
If so, Then yes, that's a fair comparison.
Yes French and Belgian league football are the top drivers in those markets.
In fact domestic rights in England have also effectively declined after rampant inflation is considered.
The tailwinds that drove rights inflation globally were;
1. Maturing pay tv platforms reaching peak distribution resulting in more organic competition
2. New entrants (ie the BT Sports of the world) focused on broadband subscriptions using the classic battering ram approach and not caring about sports right profiability.
3. Free to Air broadcasters panicking after their entertainment audiences eroded.
4. Entrance of the streamers.
Those four factors have peaked and are in effective decline when you look under the hood in most markets. DAZN are a massively loss making company who in the last year have finally decided to cut costs. They acquired Foxtel who had three years of flat revenue in a high inflationary market for too much money (although much of it was crappy paper in their own stock). We’ll see how that goes but the AFL talk was ominous.
Nine Entertainment’s share price has not been looking too sweet the last few months either. Lacklustre profits in the media space and no sign of their streamer really turning the corner.
Will others come in? Maybe. Paramount are looking for stuff, but mainly football that they can stream internationally from what I can see. I remain dubious on Netflix. A new time slot will help I guess but the confidence in ever increasing rights value might cause you a shock.
I’m sure they’ll package it up though!