On Wednesday 31 March 2021 from 16.00-17.30 CET, the Asser International Sports Law Centre, in collaboration with Dr Marjolaine Viret (University of Lausanne), is organising its fourth Zoom In webinar on the recent developments arising from the decision of the Swiss Federal Tribunal (SFT) in the case Caster Semenya v. International Association of Athletics Federations (now World Athletics), delivered on 25 August 2020.

Background
The participation of athletes with biological sex differences to international competitions is one of the most controversial issues in transnational sports law. In particular, since 2019, Caster Semenya, an Olympic champion from South-Africa has been challenging the World Athletics eligibility rules for Athletes with Differences of Sex Development (DSD Regulation), which would currently bar her from accessing international competitions (such as the Tokyo Olympics) unless she accepts to undergo medical treatment aimed at reducing her testosterone levels. In April 2019, the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected her challenge against the DSD Regulation in a lengthy award. In response, Caster Semenya and the South African Athletics Federation filed an application to set aside the award before the Swiss Federal Tribunal. In August 2020, the SFT released its decision rejecting Semenya’s challenge of the award (for an extensive commentary of the ruling see Marjolaine Viret’s article on the Asser International Sports Law Blog).

Recently, on 25 February 2021, Caster Semenya announced her decision to lodge an application at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) against Switzerland on the basis of this judgment. In this context, we thought it important to organise a Zoom In webinar around the decision of the SFT and the pending case before the ECtHR. Indeed, should the ECtHR accept the case, it will be in a position to provide a definitive assessment of the human rights compatibility of the DSD Regulation. Moreover, this decision could have important consequences on the role played by human rights in the review of the private regulations and decisions of international sports governing bodies.

Speakers

• Michele Krech (New York University)
• Lena Holzer (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies)
• Prof. Frédéric Bernard (University of Geneva)
• Prof. Antonio Rigozzi (University of Neuchâtel/Lévy Kaufmann-Kohler)

Participation is free, register HERE.

It’s been a long wait, but they’re finally here! On Monday, the European Commission released its decisions regarding State aid to seven Spanish professional football clubs (Real Madrid on two occasions) and five Dutch professional football clubs. The decisions mark the end of the formal investigations, which were opened in 2013. The Commission decided as follows: no State aid to PSV Eindhoven (1); compatible aid to the Dutch clubs FC Den Bosch, MVV Maastricht, NEC Nijmegen and Willem II (2); and incompatible aid granted to the Spanish football clubs Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Valencia CF, Athletic Bilbao, Atlético Osasuna, Elche and Hércules (3). 

The recovery decisions in particular are truly historic. The rules on State aid have existed since the foundation of the European Economic Community in 1958, but it is the very first time that professional football clubs have been ordered to repay aid received from (local) public authorities.[1] In a way, these decisions complete a development set in motion with the Walrave and Koch ruling of 1974, where the CJEU held that professional sporting activity, and therefore also football, is subject to EU law. The landmark Bosman case of 1995 proved to be of great significance as regards free movement of (professional) athletes and the Meca-Medina case of 2006 settled that EU competition rules were equally applicable to the regulatory activity of sport. The fact that the first ever State aid recovery decision concerns major clubs like Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Valencia, give the decisions extra bite. Therefore, this blog post will focus primarily on the negative/recovery decisions[2], their consequences and the legal remedies available to the parties involved.[3]

The launch of the formal investigations

The three Commission decisions to launch formal State aid investigations into alleged aid granted to Spanish professional football clubs were all made public on 18 December 2013. The first investigation concerned “possible privileges regarding corporate taxation of Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao, and Atlético Osasuna. These four clubs are exempted from the general obligation for professional football clubs to convert into sport limited companies. The effect of this exemption is that these clubs enjoy a preferential corporate tax rate of 25% instead of 30% applicable to sport limited companies.” The second investigation involved Real Madrid specifically, and was opened after the Commission expressed its doubts over “a very advantageous real property swap with the City of Madrid. This swap was based on a re-evaluation of a plot of land at a value of €22.7 million, instead of its earlier supposed value in 1998 of €595 thousand”. The third investigation dealt with three clubs from the autonomous region of Valencia: Valencia CF, Elche FC and Hércules CF. In this case, the Commission decided to investigate State guarantees by the Valencia Institute of Finance for a bank loans of (1) €75 million to Valencia CF; (2) €14 million to Elche CF; and (3) €18 million to Hércules CF. The Real Madrid real property swap case and the Valencia CF case have previously been analyzed on this blog (here, here and here).[4]

Purely based on the decisions to open formal investigations, there was little doubt as to whether the criteria of Article 107(1) were fulfilled[5]: The football clubs in question received a selective economic advantage deriving from a measure taken by public authorities and which involved a transfer of State resources. This advantage has affected trade and threatens to distort the internal market. What remained unclear was whether the Member States could convince the Commission to declare the State aid compatible under Article 107(3)c) TFEU,[6] and, if not, how high the recovery would be. The complexity of the Real Madrid case in particular led to uncertainty as to whether a possible recovery decision would merely imply Real Madrid having to pay a lump sum to the city of Madrid, or whether one or more land transactions would have to be undone.[7]

Last but not least, it should be kept in mind that ordering recovery of State aid is a politically sensitive decision. Given that State aid investigations are always directed at the Member State (with limited room for interested party intervention, including the beneficiary), such proceedings are inherently political. Furthermore, from analyzing Commission speeches and policy documents, such as the recently published Report on Competition Policy 2015, one will reach the conclusion that actively enforcing EU competition law, including State aid law, in sport, is not a Commission priority. Any recovery decision in the professional sport sector, therefore, would need to serve as a blueprint for future cases: it should prevent other public authorities to grant State aid to professional sport clubs in contravention of State aid rules. 

The Commission’s press release ordering the State aid recovery

Though the press release does not provide all the facts, it includes many interesting elements. First of all, the privileges regarding corporate taxation of Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao, and Atlético Osasuna were found to be incompatible State aid, and each club has to repay between €0 and €5 million depending on what the Spanish authorities determine in the recovery process. The press release further states that Spain adjusted its legislation on corporate taxation to end this discriminatory treatment. This last point is especially important, because it demonstrates that the “bite” of State aid could exceed a mere recovery order. Simply opening a formal investigation into this issue has made the Spanish authorities reconsider its corporate taxation and adjust it accordingly to prevent future State aid being granted. Moreover, tackling unfair corporate tax advantages has been a priority for the Commission for the last few years.[8]

As regards Real Madrid’s advantageous real property swap with the City of Madrid, the Commission concluded that the football club was only entitled to a compensation of €4.3 million, so that Real Madrid obtained an advantage of €18.4 million. In other words, the city of Madrid needs to recover €18.4 million from Real Madrid. Although this calculation seems rather straightforward, it should be noted that the press release only refers to the re-valuation of one of the lands transferred. This means that only one land transaction was found to be incompatible with EU State aid rules, while all the land transactions remain valid.

In the third and final decision the Commission determined that Valencia, Hércules and Elche will need to repay €20.4 million, €6.1 million and €3.7 million respectively. The Commission acknowledged that the three clubs were in financial difficulties when the public institution Valencia Institute of Finance, placed a public guarantee on bank loans provided to the football clubs, but did not find this difficulties sufficiently severe to declare the aid compatible with the internal market.[9] The fact that the clubs paid no adequate remuneration for the guarantees, and that the State financing was not linked to any restructuring plan, made the Commission decide to order the recovery of that aid. The arguments brought forward by the Spanish authorities defending the State aid measure will not be known until the non-confidential version of the decision is published in a few months. What we do know is that at the time the formal investigation was launched in December 2013, the Spanish authorities had not communicated any restructuring or liquidation plan to the Commission, nor were any of the conditions met for authorizing restructuring aid under the Community Guidelines on State aid for rescuing and restructuring firms in difficulty, even though the three clubs were in severe financial difficulties.[10]  

The consequences of the negative and recovery decisions

It is important to make a distinction between negative decisions and recovery decisions.[11] They are, in fact, two separate decisions. As can be read in Articles 9(5) and 16(1) of the State Aid Procedural Regulations 2015/1589, the negative decision precedes the recovery decision. Under a negative decision, the Commission decides that the aid shall not be put into effect for not being compatible with the internal market. Any plans to grant future State aid under that measure will automatically be halted. The recovery decision can only be granted if the aid, or part of the aid, has been granted in the past, such as in the cases at hand.[12] The decision orders the Member State concerned to take all necessary measures to recover the aid from the beneficiary.[13] As can be read in the Commission’s Recovery Notice, the main objective of the recovery order is to re-establish the situation existing before the aid was unlawfully granted.[14] The recovery, which is subject to a limitation period of 10 years[15], “shall be effected without delay and in accordance with the procedures under the national law of the Member State concerned”.[16]  This means that it is up to Spain to decide on the procedure of how and when it recovers the aid, in accordance with its own national law.

Since the negative and recovery decisions are addressed to Spain, it may institute proceedings against the negative decision and/or the recovery decision, pursuant to Article 263 TFEU. The Spanish central government has not yet announced its position regarding the decisions or whether it plans to launch an appeal. The city of Madrid and the autonomous region of Valencia on the other hand, have both declared that they wish to recuperate the State aid granted to the respective football clubs.[17] Article 263 TFEU also allows any natural or legal person to challenge a Commission decision that is of direct and individual concern to them. In other words, now that for example Real Madrid is ordered to repay €18.4 million to Spain, it is directly affected by the recovery decision and has already publicly stated that it will initiate proceedings against the Commission.

The General Court shall have jurisdiction to hear and determine at first instance actions referred to in Article 263 TFEU. A decision by the General Court may be subject to a right of appeal to the Court of Justice.[18] Contrary to the General Court, the Court of Justice could decide, under Article 278 TFEU, that the recovery order should be suspended.   

Conclusion

The negative and recovery decisions could have consequences for the relationship between the Spanish State (particularly local governments) and professional football. The practices now condemned by the European Commission are known to have been taking place for decades. A recently published report by Transparency International, for example, discusses how Spanish football clubs, in collaboration with the local governments, would turn to urban speculation with the objective of making easy money. The report used an agreement between the city of Murcia and its local football club Real Murcia as an example. The Real Madrid case, which is also about urban speculation, is another example of this standardized practice in Spain. The fact that the Commission orders recovery of aid from the richest and most successful club in Spain, should send a message to the smaller clubs and cities that urban/ land agreements between clubs and public authorities are not unconditionally accepted.

In addition, the decisions will especially be tough for Valencia, Hércules and Elche, three clubs known to be in financial difficulties already. Valencia has already announced that it “reserves the right to appeal to the European Court of Justice”, but one wonders whether it is worth the risk, considering the legal fees attached to such an appeal. On the other hand, the public authorities will realize that granting State aid to professional football clubs can bounce back hard, if it is not granted pursuant an objective of general interest and in a transparent manner. Furthermore, rescue aid, such as in Valencia, cannot be granted without implementing a restructuring plan at the same time. A proper restructuring plan will help limit the possibility of the club returning to financial difficulties in the future. Finally, clubs too must be aware that they must live “within their own means” and that they cannot always depend on local public institutions to bail them out of there financial troubles.   

[1] For the discussion on why there was (and still is) so little State aid enforcement in the professional sport/football sector, see Ben Van Rompuy and Oskar van Maren, “EU Control of State Aid to Professional Sport: Why Now?” In: “The Legacy of Bosman. Revisiting the relationship between EU law and sport”, T.M.C. Asser Press, 2016.

[2] The distinction between a negative decision and a recovery decision will be explained further below.

[3] A specific blog post on the State aid decision concerning the Dutch football clubs will be made shortly.

[4] For an even more detailed (factual) analysis of the Real Madrid case, see: Oskar van Maren, “The Real Madrid case: A State aid case (un)like any other?” 11 Competition Law Review 1:83-108.

[5] Even though Real Madrid has always insisted the real property swap was not economically advantageous, since the value of the real property was calculated in accordance with market conditions. Supra note 4.

[6] Under this provision, State aid that facilitates the development of certain activities or of certain economic areas, where such aid does not adversely affects trading conditions to an extent contrary to the common interest, may be considered compatible with the internal market.

[7] It is a matter of discussion whether the Real Madrid case concerns only the land transaction of July 2011, or whether a second land transaction of November 2011 should be included in the same investigation. Supra, note 4.

[8] Report from the Commission COM(2016) 313 of 15 June 2016 to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of Regions – Report on Competition Policy 2015, pages 12-13.

[9] Contrary to the State aid granted to FC Den Bosch, MVV, Willem II and NEC, where the Commission determined that the aid was granted in line with the 2004 Guidelines on State aid for rescuing and restructuring firms in difficulty.

[10] Commission decision of 18 December 2013 SA.36387 – Alleged aid in favour of three Valencia football clubs, para.44.

[11] A third option, as stipulated in Article 9(3) of the State aid Procedural Regulation, is the positive decision. This is a decision where the Commission decides that the aid is compatible with the internal market. The decision allowing the aid to the Dutch clubs is an example of a positive decision. Challenging a positive decision under Article 263 TFEU is also possible for the Member State concerned, should it wish to do so.

[12] The aid is, for example, not granted yet when the Member State simply notifies the Commission of its plan grant State aid. Should the Commission declare the plan to grant State aid incompatible with the internal market, then there will be no need to order recovery as well.

[13] The Commission, however, can decide against a recovery order if it believes that such a recovery would be contrary to a principle of Union law. This gives the Commission the possibility to declare a State aid measure incompatible with EU law on the one hand, but not order recovery of that aid on the other.

[14] Notice from the Commission (2007/C 272/05) of 15 November 2007 Towards an effective implementation of Commission decisions ordering Member States to recover unlawful and incompatible State aid, point 2.2.

[15] Council Regulation (EU) 2015/1589 of 13 July 2015 laying down detailed rules fort the application of Article 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Article 17(1).

[16] Ibid., Article 16(3).

[17] It is worth mentioning that at the time the State aid was granted, the Spanish Conservative Party, PP, was in power in Madrid as well as in the autonomous region of Valencia. These two local governments are nowadays formed by opposition parties. On the other hand, the PP is still the biggest political party at national level.

[18] Consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union C 326/47 of 26 October 2010, Article 256(1).

Editor’s note: Marine Montejo is a graduate from the College of Europe in Bruges and is currently an Intern at the ASSER International Sports Law Centre.

In its decisions regarding the joint selling of football media rights (UEFA, Bundesliga, FA Premier league), the European Commission insisted that premium media rights must be sold through a non-discriminatory and transparent tender procedure, in several packages and for a limited period of time in order to reduce foreclosure effects in the downstream market. These remedies ensure that broadcasters are able to compete for rights that carry high audiences and, for pay TV, a stable number of subscriptions. In line with these precedents, national competition authorities have tried to ensure compliance with remedy packages. The tipping point here appears to be the premium qualification of sport rights on the upstream market of commercialization of sport TV rights.

This begs the question: which sport TV rights must be considered premium? The European Commission already held that European football championships, the Olympics and Formula 1 are premium rights but the question remains open for various other sports because they have not been the subject of competition proceedings yet. Two recent cases (the decisions are accessible here and here) brought before the French competition authority concerning rugby TV rights highlighted the need to bring out objective criteria to determine what are premium sport rights, bearing in mind that something premium in France may be qualified as non-premium in another market depending on its characteristics. Before discussing the need for legal certainty for sport rights holders, we will appraise the two French decisions on rugby and how premium sports are qualified.  

From non-premium to premium 

Canal Plus, the current holder of the rights, and the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (national rugby league, “LNR”) entered into a negotiated procedure regarding the renewal of their Top 14 TV rights. However, in December 2013, the procedure was unsuccessful and the LNR decided to terminate the contract it had with Canal Plus. In so doing, the LNR started a legal war with its former broadcaster. As one of the conditions for the approval of the TPS/Canal Sat merger, Canal Plus was required to give the LNR the option to terminate their contract at the end of the 2013/2014 season.[1] The LNR, deciding that the price Canal Plus was paying did not correspond to the reality of the market anymore, started an open call for tenders for the next four seasons which led Canal Plus to file several legal actions to challenge the interruption of the negotiations, the termination of the contract and the call for tenders. Almost immediately the LNR suspended the call for tenders and resumed its negotiations with Canal Plus. In January 2014, the exclusive TV rights for all the Top 14 matches were awarded to Canal Plus - not only for the subsequent four but ultimately the following five seasons (2014/2015 to 2018/2019). Canal Plus had to put 355 million euros on the table to acquire the exclusive rights, amounting to twice the amount it paid for the previous broadcasting contract. BeIN Sports, a newcomer on the French sport TV rights market,[2] filed a complaint and asked for interim measures with the Autorité de la concurrence.[3]

The French competition authority, in its decisional practice,[4] distinguishes six different markets for sport TV rights acquisitions: (i) the national football first division market (Ligue 1); (ii) the market for annual football championships involving French teams (Ligue, UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League); (iii) the market for the most attractive foreign football championships; (iv) the market for other football competitions; (v) the market for events of major importance other than football; and (vi) the market for sport competitions other than football and events of major importance (or “other rights”). The first five markets are better known as premium rights while the last one consists of all other non-premium rights. Rugby media rights were considered as non-premium before that decision.

The Autorité recognized that rugby and more importantly, the Top 14 championship, were facing an important growth in popularity as reflected by the high value of its broadcastings rights and the high audiences it attracts. At the time of the decision, rugby was the third sport, after football and tennis, in terms of viewers and Canal Plus accepted to pay an average of 71 million euros per season for the rights.

Top 14 average rights price per season (1998-2014) 

Canal Plus Top 14 audiences and best audiences per season (2008-2014)

The Top 14 appears to be an important source of subscriptions (pt. 100) which makes it particularly attractive for pay TV channels. This competition was the second driver of subscriptions (32%) for Canal Plus just after the Ligue 1 (51%) but before the UEFA Champions League (31%). In light of these circumstances, the Top 14 rights should be considered as premium TV rights.

Next, in considering which market these rights should belong to, the Autorité set four criteria to be met to decide on the relevant premium market: (i) key sales driver for TV subscription; (ii) high audiences; (iii) value over 10 million euros per season; and (iv) competition characteristics (level and regularity). Without being particularly clear, the Autorité seems to consider that the Top 14 rights belong to a separate premium market (pt. 138). As a consequence, given the particularities of the French market, the Top 14 rights shifted from the non-premium market to the premium market which means that their commercialisation should have been awarded through a transparent and non-discriminatory tender procedure, for a limited period of time and divided into several packages consistent with the national and European practices.[5] 

From non-premium to semi-premium? 

The question concerning the premium qualification of sport TV rights arose again in a more recent case[6] before the French competition authority, this time concerning the live broadcasting rights for rugby’s second tier (“Pro D2”). The LNR carried out a public consultation for the marketing of commercial rights for the Pro D2 championships for the 2015/2016 to 2019/2020 seasons. Following three rounds of negotiation, Canal Plus and Eurosport were awarded the rights for a total of 31 million euros. The third and rejected applicant, Ma Chaîne Sport (“MCS”), a fairly new but growing sports channel[7] and more importantly part of the Altice group (a multinational cable, fiber, telecommunications, contents and media company), filed a complaint before the French Autorité de la Concurrence. In this complaint, it claimed it was excluded from the selling process as a result of both a cartel between Eurosport, Canal Plus and the LNR, and an abuse of dominant position from the LNR on “the market for the acquisition of semi-premium sport TV rights” (pt.47).

The TV rights for the Pro D2 championship are part of the sport “other rights” market as the competition authority never had to decide on that particular case before. However, MCS is claiming that these rights should belong to a new and different market of semi-premium sport rights that, without combining together the usual criteria found in the jurisprudence to identify premium rights, are still able to attract significant audiences, making them sufficiently attractive to be of interest to premium channels.[8] MCS further argues that the Pro D2, the football Ligue 2 (second division), the basketball Pro A and the handball D1 (all first division) belong on that market. All those rights, with the exception of the Ligue 2 rights which are considered as premium, are valuable in terms of killer content for pay TV but currently belong to the non-premium rights market. The Autorité acknowledges that the non-premium rights market is set as default and brings together a heterogeneous set of rights in attractiveness and value (pt.55). It also acknowledges that some of these rights attract higher prices but not quite enough to meet the threshold of 10 million euros per season to be considered as premium. Referring to its consistent decision making, the Autorité considers that relying on a sole criterion, namely a higher selling price than the average prices in the non-premium market, is not sufficient to change the relevant market to a premium market, without a substitutability analysis (pt.58). As a consequence, those rights are still deemed to belong to the non-premium rights market.

The recognition of a semi-premium market would have led to a division in the non-premium rights market (i.e. semi-premium rights on the one hand and the remaining rights that are less valuable on the other hand). Once again, the Autorité points out that such a categorization within the non-premium category is irrelevant from a competition law point of view (pt.59). Establishing a specific premium TV rights market should involve legal consequences as usually occurs when TV rights shift from the non-premium market to a specific premium market. Within the same market, it is difficult to see what those legal consequences should be. The non-premium TV market is ruled by common contract law in contrast to premium rights that have to comply with a number of obligations to ensure compliance with EU competition law (open and transparent tendering process, packages, and limits in duration). Imposing those remedies on the semi-premium market would lead to the absorption of the market by the premium TV rights markets (pt.63). As a consequence, the Autorité finds that there is no legal need to define a semi-premium sport TV rights market.  

Towards legal certainty for sport rights holders

We have seen that the shift between non-premium and premium sport rights is the tipping point that leads rights holders to start open tendering processes for the selling of their rights. However, in France, the Code du Sport provides that sport federations are the owners[9] of the media rights for their sport. These federations can decide to transfer this ownership to clubs.[10] In this case, joint selling by the league is compulsory[11] and it has to be done through an open and transparent tender process, the rights must be packaged and they must be sold for a maximum period of four years.[12] The Code du Sport codifies the remedies imposed by the European Commission in the joint selling of football media rights cases, but it does not mention premium rights. These obligations are applicable in the case of transfer of ownership and where a professional league exists. Thus, in France it only applies in relation to football, rugby, basketball, volleyball and handball, five sport for which a professional league has been set up. In practice, the French football federation is the only federation that transferred the ownership of rights to its clubs for the first and second divisions[13] and, as a consequence, the football national league, responsible for the joint selling on behalf of the clubs, has to respect the obligations laid down in the Code. It is possible that, in hoping to circumvent those obligations, the other four federations decided to keep the ownership of the media rights. This is, in particular, the case of the rugby federation where the league is selling the media rights for the Top 14 and Pro D2 on behalf of the federation.[14]

Both decisions on the Top 14 and Pro D2 reintegrate the notion of premium and non-premium rights into the legal analysis. In the case of rugby, where the national provisions for the selling of sport rights did not apply because the federation was the owner of these rights and not the clubs, the shift from non-premium to premium rights leads to the application of competition remedies. Moreover, the Top 14 decision opens the way to tendering processes, packaging and the limiting of contract durations in cases of sports where national provisions do not apply because there is no professional league. Indeed, in this scenario, the media rights will be considered as premium because they fulfil all criteria. Hence, two scenarios can be envisaged: where a professional league exists, the federation has to decide whether it transfers the rights ownership to clubs and respects the obligations laid down in the law; and where it decides to retain ownership, or if there is no league, the federation or league has to make sure its rights are not premium in accordance with the Top 14 decision before deciding on the marketing procedure it has to follow.

The criteria developed by the French competition authority appear to be quite objective and effective as these criteria were also used by the Belgian competition authority in a dispute between Proximus and Telenet concerning the rights of the 2015-2016 cycle-cross Superprestige competition that were awarded to Telenet.[15] Telenet used the cumulative criteria from the Top 14 decision to show that cycle-cross does not constitute a separate market from the other cycling rights that are not premium. The national competition authority however, also referring to the French decision, considers that these rights should be on a separate premium market because of their popularity throughout Flanders and that they are subscriptions driver. The question remaining here is whether it would be useful to codify these criteria. First, it has to be stated that these criteria were only used in the case of live TV and that it is difficult to assess if they are objective enough to be used for all media transmissions (which are mostly Internet-based). On the other hand, media is a fast moving market and it is absolutely not certain that engaging in a legislative process to codify those criteria will give the margin of appreciation necessary to correctly assess premium sport media rights markets and prevent any distortion of competition. A full codification does not appear essential in that case and, as shown in the Belgian cycle-cross situation, these criteria can be used in other sports and markets to determine the premium qualification of media rights which gives a modicum of legal certainty to sport rights holders.

However, a question remains surrounding sport rights that almost fall within the premium market. For non-premium rights, rights holders have the freedom to decide how they want to organise the selling of their TV rights. As Telenet in the Belgian decision on cycle-cross rightly pointed out, the imposition of a transparent tender procedure for rights holders that belong to the non-premium market creates an imbalance as they do not have the same resources as the premium rights holders to organise such a costly tender procedure. Yet, in practice, and in the Pro D2 case, rights holders tend to organise tender procedures and unbundle their rights even though they are not legally obliged to do so. In the case of the Top 14, the LNR carried out a market assessment before even starting its negotiations with Canal Plus and should have known its rights fell into the premium category. The problem here for rights holders is to prevent any dispute arising after the selling process concerning the non-premium/premium qualification of the TV rights in question. Identifying a semi-premium category may be useful for rights holders in better managing the shift from non-premium to premium rights holders. Right holders that are close to seeing their non-premium rights become premium should carefully assess the commercial attractiveness of their rights and probably decide on a formal selling procedure in order not to risk their selling process being annulled by competition authorities.

As seen with these two French cases, the value of sport TV rights may change over time, depending on factors such as the improvement in the level of competition and the public interest, which creates the possibility for these rights to change categories. Moreover, this appreciation may change from one national market to another. Moving from the non-premium to premium market implies some important changes in the selling process and rights holders should carefully appraise the value and popularity of their sport beforehand. The criteria laid down in the Top 14 decision may be considered as guiding principles in this process and, accordingly, it may be used by other competition authorities faced with similar circumstances.

[1] Autorité de la concurrence, 12-DCC-100, 23/07/2012

[2] BeIN Sport is a French sport premium channel in direct competition with Canal Plus and Eurosport and owns an important portfolio of sport rights for football (Ligue 1, Ligue 2, UEFA Champions League and Europa League), rugby, tennis and handball in particular. In February 2016 Canal Plus announced it had reached an agreement to exclusively distribute beIN Sports. The French competition authority is expected to decide very soon on that issue.

[3] Autorité de la concurrence, 14-MC-01, 30/07/2014 and Cour d’Appel de Paris, arrêt du 09 octobre 2014.

[4] Autorité de la concurrence, 12-DCC-100, 23/07/2012.

[5] Commission Decision, UEFA Champions League (Case COMP/C.2-37.398), 23/07/2003

[6] Autorité de la concurrence, 16-D-04, 23/03/2016.

[7] MCS (from July 2016, SFR Sport channels) sport rights portfolio mainly consists of the competition rights overlooked by the biggest actors on the market. However, it owns some valuable rights such as the basketball Pro A (French first division basketball championship), the CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League, the WTA tour in tennis and more importantly, from 2016, the FA Premier League.

[8] « qui, sans réunir l’ensemble des critères habituellement retenus par la jurisprudence pour identifier un caractère premium, sont des moteurs d’audience significatifs pour les chaînes thématiques sportives et des contenus suffisamment attractifs pour également intéresser les chaînes premium », pt.49

[9] Code du Sport, articles L.331-1 and R.333-1

[10] Ibid, L.331-1

[11] Ibid, article R.333-2

[12] Ibid, article R.333-3

[13] See article 25 of the FFF/LFP convention

[14] See article 28 of the FFR/LNR convention

[15] Belgische Mededingingsautoriteit, 15-VM-65, 05/11/2015