New Ligue 1 logo and sponsor gives promise to a broader vision
Next year's Ligue 1 title sponsor turning heads, but does it matter?
President of the Ligue de Football Professionnel, Vincent Labrune, has vowed that he would transform Ligue 1 into a league that could compete with the “big boys” in Europe since taking over the helm of the organization in 2020. And while that road has been paved with many self-placed roadblocks (that could be an issue in the coming months, as the National Financial Prosecutor’s office is starting an investigation into possible embezzled public funds), the new Ligue 1 logo, as well as the upcoming title sponsor of the league, McDonald’s, does paint a brighter future moving forward.
First, let’s look at the McDonald’s sponsorship. The current title sponsor, UberEats, paid 16 million Euros per year. McDonald’s is going to up that, bringing that amount to 20 million a year, for a three-year deal of 60 million Euros. Considering that EA Sports paid 30 million Euros for the naming rights of La Liga, the money that McDonald’s is putting into Ligue 1 isn’t chump change. In fact, the fast food industry in France has been skyrocketing over the last few years, making McDonald’s foray into Ligue 1 all the more wiser.
This does represent a major shift for the league. Prior to UberEats, sponsorship in Ligue 1 was very French-centric, with French-based furniture store Conforama being the sponsor before UberEats, and French-based Orange Telecom being the title sponsor before them. McDonald’s truly brings a well-known international look to the league, which is trying to shake its “only people in France watch it” reputation.
With that being said, will this infusion of extra cash be enough to push Ligue 1 as a competitive European league? As of right now, Ligue 1 is significantly behind the next best league, the Bundesliga, with PSG anchoring the way for the league. Yes, sometime a team like Lille can do better than expected, but they are the absolute exception and not the rule. Hell, Krasnodar beat out Rennes in the group stage in the Champions League in 2021, which was embarrassing.
The logo
Ever since France’s top flight of football was named “Ligue 1” 22 years ago, the logo hasn’t been the greatest. When Orange was the first sponsor in 2002, the logo looked more like a sign you would see in a Carrefour than for a sports league. And since 2008, the league’s logo included, in some way, L’Hexagoal, the unrecognizable trophy awarded to the Ligue 1 champion. Basically, as with the sponsorship, the league with extremely French-centric with the lack of any outward vision.
The new logo that has been presented has changed that. No longer is L’Hexagoal present. Instead, it’s just a big “1”. Honestly, why Ligue 1 hasn’t played up the fact that it is the only major league in Europe that has the number “1” in its title beats me. But still, even though it looks like a number that would be plastered on a mid-1970s Formula 1 car, it’s much edgier and sleeker than the monstrosities of logos that they have had previously.
Why the new logo and sponsor matter
Throughout this article, you might have noticed one pattern; Ligue 1 has always been French-centric. With the exception of Olympique Marseille and Paris Saint-Germain, no other entity within Ligue 1 has really tried to venture outside of their French comfort zone. Even when Olympique Lyonnais dominated Ligue 1, with international players as well, they rarely were able to cash in on that success internationally (with the exception of selling their youth academy players around the world).
While a logo and a new sponsor isn’t a magic bullet, it does give the long-time Ligue 1 fan hope that the league is seriously thinking about trying to compete with other major European leagues. And even though this is a positive step, PSG’s stranglehold on the league (and television rights, to be honest) has to really be addressed. Ligue 1 can either become a diverse league to compete with the big boys, or PSG’s stomping ground. It can’t be both.
The francophone world has been increasingly overshadowed by the anglophile world for a couple of centuries now. It's tragic that France has such a love-hate relationship with their former colonies around the world. A irreversible strategic mistake was not to be more inclusive and welcoming of those ex-colonies. Wouldn't it have been exciting to have Ligue 1 teams with Canadian ownership and French-Canadians playing against other teams representing Morocco, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, etc.?