the sports press market | France

1.1 Presentation of the sports press market

The sports press includes press titles dealing with sports and sports news. The sports press titles are in both the magazine and newspaper segments. These titles come in a wide variety of formats (newspapers or magazines) and publication rhythms: daily, weekly or monthly. The sports press does not include the automobile and motorcycle press

The world press market is very specific to the different continents The paper format is very popular in China and India, two giants in terms of ratings. Nevertheless, in Europe and North America, the paper format is gradually losing ground to digital

In France, the sports press is a sub-segment of the press market. In fact, paid broadcasts in France of the sports press represent 0.77% of paid broadcasts of the mainstream press. Nevertheless, this niche has many particularities that make it particularly interesting in the current transformation of the press sector

Indeed, following the trend in the magazine market (for which a study has been carried out), the Businesscoot is available here ), the sports press is experiencing a decline in physical sales. Paid circulation (number of sales) is down 5.52% in 2019. Publishers' advertising revenues are also declining, and the transition to digital is generating losses of advertisers who are not yet convinced by the new formats. However, revenues from online presence can offset the decline in revenues from traditional press formats.

The Covid-19 crisis had a heavy impact on press titles specialising in sports news, however a recovery was observed in the months following the first containment

It can also be observed that players in the sports press market are engaged in a strategy of refocusing on their core business The Group's strategy is not only to develop its digital offering, as evidenced by the sale of Le Parisien to LVMH by the Amaury group, but also to develop its digital offering and to specialize in order to meet a very diverse demand

Moreover, despite the decline in print circulation, the appeal of the French for sports and newspapers is not waning, while the market is regularly renewed by the emergence of new practices and international events.