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- ESPN+ and BT to stream 18 games during 2020/21 season
- AtaFootball platform will carry live and on demand coverage, as well as highlights
- Deal ensures at least one match from each round will air in featured territories
D1 Arkema, the top tier of women’s soccer in France, has secured a flurry of international media rights deals spanning the US, Italy, Germany, and the UK and Ireland.
The three-year contracts will see sports streaming subscription service ESPN+ show 18 matches in the US during the 2020/21 season, while pay-TV broadcaster BT Sport will air the same number of fixtures in the UK and Ireland.
Meanwhile DAZN, the digital sports media company, has picked up coverage of D1 Arkema, which is home to European champions Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, for its streaming service in Italy and Germany.
In addition, over-the-top (OTT) service Fanatiz will carry 18 games live in the UK, Italy and Germany, as well as on delay in the US.
Noël Le Graët, president of the French Football Federation (FFF), which governs D1 Arkema, said: “This three-season partnership will allow the broadcast of a minimum of one live match in each round in these territories and represents a further step in the development and promotion of D1 Arkema, its clubs and of French women’s football in general.”
The broad distribution was secured by recently launched women’s soccer company Atalanta Media, which itself will present delayed and on-demand coverage in the US of 18 D1 Arkema games on its Ata Football digital platform, while it will also live stream those fixtures in the UK, Italy and Germany. Weekly highlights from the French league will also be available on Ata Football across all of those territories.
Atalanta Media brokered the agreement with French pay-TV company Canal+, which exclusively distributes D1 Arkema’s international media rights.
It comes just over a month after Atalanta Media launched having secured coverage for England’s Women’s Super League (WSL) on NBC Sports in the US and DAZN in Italy and Germany.
The deal with D1 Arkema means the company now has media rights to games from the top-tier women’s soccer leagues in England and France, as well as international clip rights for Germany’s Frauen-Bundesliga.
“We’re excited to help bring D1 Arkema, another one of the world’s top women’s leagues, to millions more via our newest broadcast and digital partners,” added Atalanta Media co-founder and general manager Esmeralda Negron.
“To realise our vision for the next generation of girls and young players, fans need to regularly see the sport’s greatest stars, and Ata Football is quickly becoming the facilitator for that content and the online community to connect and inspire them.”
