Basketball: why will Betclic Elite basketball no longer be visible until further notice ?

Les matches de l'Asvel de Tony Parker, également partenaire de Skweek, ne seront plus diffusés. MAXPPP – Enric Fontcuberta

The broadcast of the French basketball championship stopped until further notice on Wednesday April 17 due to unpaid bills on the Skweek platform, reported the newspaper L'Équipe, parent company of the production company 21 Prod present at these matches.

Wednesday evening, a first match was not broadcast by Skweek, Roanne-Monaco, on behalf of the 31st day of the Elite championship, due to lack of a producer. Due to unpaid bills on the Skweek platform, owned by the Monegasque group Fedcom controlled by Russian-Hungarian businessman Aleksej Fedoricsev, the production company of the L'Équipe group , 21 Prod, sent a termination letter to FedCom Media on Wednesday.

An internal source at the L'Équipe group confirmed to AFP that on Wednesday, its subsidiary 21 Prod had informed Skweek that it was stopping working for this broadcaster. "If FedCom Media has paid the broadcasting rights correctly, the production would no longer have been paid since November", wrote the sports daily on Thursday.

"Fedcom Media has to date paid all broadcasting rights", Fedcom said in a press release, without mentioning the arrears concerning the production. The Monegasque group mentioned "difficulties encountered by Fedcom Media and one of its service providers".

"The situation is no longer sustainable"

Unless payments from Skweek are resumed, the broadcast on this platform of the next matches, starting on Saturday, seems unlikely. But other matches could be broadcast on the L'Équipe channel, a free TNT channel, including in particular the poster for Sunday Asvel-Paris.

"In each match, L'Equipe incurs a lot of costs", declared the internal source at the L'Equipe group. "The Team bears the costs of financing the production of Euroleague and Elite matches and the situation is no longer sustainable".

The play-offs phase under threat ?

When contacted on Thursday morning, the National Basketball League did not react. Fedcom is suffering from financial sanctions hitting certain Russian groups after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2023.

While there are five days left in the Elite championship, until May 11, a month of play-offs between mid-May and mid-June could also be affected by these diffusion problems.

Skweek holds the broadcast rights to the Elite for seven seasons (including two optional), until 2030. The broadcast in France of the Euroleague, normally provided by Skweek, is threatened in the same way, while the Monaco club, also owned by Fedcom, is competing in the quarter-finals from April 24.