Can Neymar Score a $1.4 Billion Payout for French Soccer?

Neymar is showing he’s worth at least some of the record 222 million euros ($264 million) his new French soccer club paid for him.

Paris Saint-Germain is unbeaten this season with help from the 25-year-old Brazilian star’s goals and assists. It even humbled the mighty Bayern Munich last week in Europe’s top competition, the Champions League, which is broadcast worldwide.

But now everyone wants in. As PSG’s Qatari owners try to build a global sports brand, the French soccer league is eager to make sure it gets a boost from the buzz around the world’s most expensive player by locking in television companies with a new rights deal.

The plan was to start the bidding next year. Competition between incumbents Vivendi SA’s Canal Plus and Qatar’s beIn Sports along with Altice NV, France’s second-largest telecoms company, means the league might hold an auction as soon as next month, according to people familiar with the matter. The price to beam games into French living rooms and bars and onto mobile phones will rise to as much as 1.2 billion euros a season, the people said. The rights contract is currently worth 750 million euros each year.

“This is the moment for the league,” said Virgile Caillet, general delegate of the Sport & Cycle Union, a federation of sport businesses. “All the stars are aligned with strong competition between broadcasters on the demand side and a product that has never been so attractive on the offer side.”

No French club has ever had the kind of money to go global and few have ever really rivaled bigger, more established European giants on the field, let alone in the lucrative merchandise markets in the Far East.

As well as the French domestic rights, it’s likely the contract to show top-flight Ligue 1 games abroad will also come up in negotiations, said Caillet. BeIn Sports, which has deals in places like Thailand and Malaysia, currently holds the international rights until 2024, though only paid 80 million euros a year for them.

“Neymar is going to serve as a flag bearer,” said Christophe Lepetit, head of economic research at CDES, the center for sports law and economy at the University of Limoges. “It will make it possible for the French championship to become known abroad, especially in countries like China or India.”