Champions League TV Ratings: PSG Drew More Than Twice Lille’s Canal+ Audience

Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League opener drew more than twice the Canal+ audience for Lille’s first match of the same campaign. PSG–Slovan Bratislava averaged 1.37 million viewers in France on September 9, compared with 541,000 for Lille–Real Betis on September 8, News Tank Football reported, citing Médiamétrie.

The gap was about 829,000 viewers, with the Paris broadcast averaging roughly 2.53 times the Lille audience. Both figures cover Canal+ broadcasts from the opening matchday of the 2026–27 league phase. They describe those September matches, rather than the clubs’ latest European fixtures.

The same channel provides a useful comparison

Keeping the broadcaster and market constant removes one major difference that complicates comparisons between countries or services. Both French clubs were also beginning the same competition stage. The larger Paris figure therefore represents a substantial difference within one channel’s coverage, without mixing a free broadcast in one country with a subscription audience elsewhere.

The matches offered different contests. PSG won 6–1 at the Parc des Princes. Lille lost 3–2 at home after leading 2–1 at halftime, conceding twice early in the second half and having Ethan Mbappé sent off.

Those results provide context for the broadcasts, but cannot explain the audience gap by themselves. The teams faced different opponents on consecutive evenings. Without comparable viewing data through each match, the averages do not show whether the score, a particular incident or another part of the evening’s schedule changed viewing.

What the figures measure

The comparison concerns average viewers, not the number of different people who watched any portion of each match. Adding the rows would not establish unique reach. Audience share is a separate percentage and is not the proportion of France’s entire population watching.

News Tank attributes both averages to Médiamétrie; the underlying measurement report was not separately available for this comparison. No additional streaming or multiplex audience is included in the table without a verified figure. Two opening matches also cannot establish either club’s season average or how many viewers Canal+ gained as paying subscribers.

For separately measured U.S. soccer audiences, explore the soccer records in the Ratings database.

Sources and notes

Audience figures and shares: News Tank Football, September 10, 2026, citing Médiamétrie. Match dates and results: the official PSG and LOSC reports linked above. The difference and ratio are calculated from the published rounded averages.