(Bloomberg) — France’s elite professional football league backed a broadcast deal with Len Blavatnik’s streaming group Dazn Group Ltd. and the Qatari sports broadcaster beIN to screen live matches this season, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The board of the Ligue de Football Professionnel, the governing body for professional football in France, voted in favor of the Dazn-beIN deal on Sunday, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information wasn’t public yet.

Terms of a five-year deal are still being finalized, the person added, saying the league wants to insert an exit clause after two years.

Representatives for Dazn and beIN declined to comment. A spokesperson for the league didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The decision to team up with Dazn and beIN comes after months of talks between Ligue 1 and various parties and puts an end for the time being to talk of the league creating its own channel.

The French league originally set an ambitious target of around €1 billion ($1.1 billion) for its domestic and global broadcast rights but has struggled to obtain that figure from conventional broadcast deals, with the main player in the market, Canal+, declining to bid.

Season Starting

French radio RMC reported on Sunday that the deal with Dazn and beIN should bring in about €500 million a year in revenue.

With talks having continued with the start of the season in August approaching, some clubs had become increasingly concerned about their finances. Last week Bloomberg News reported that CVC Capital Partners, a minority shareholder in the French league, was helping to organize a short-term lending facility for teams in particular difficulty.

Broadcast revenues are a key component of budgets for most European teams and most broadcast deals include guaranteed payments early on in the season.

Winning the fraught battle in France is important for Dazn, which has been building its portfolio of premium sports rights in Europe. It’s the current holder of elite football rights in Italy, Span and Germany. It’s in a dispute with the Bundesliga over a renewed offer in Germany.

‘Looking to the Past’

John Textor, the American owner of the Olympique Lyonnais club, said in a tweet on X that he regretted taking a back-seat in the process and firmly believed that the league should have pursued its own channel.

In a statement ahead of the decision, he said that Dazn and beIN’s business models will be obsolete by the time the contracts expire. “Signing a long-term contract with traditional distribution models is looking to the past when we should be looking to the future,” Textor said.

–With assistance from Gaspard Sebag.

(Updates with league seeking exit clause in third paragraph.)

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