Behind the tries and the red cards there is an economic machine, and it is running well. The LNR’s 2025/2026 annual report shows solid accounts, underpinned by stable broadcast rights and thriving play-offs. Above all, the league is redistributing at a level never reached before. A breakdown of a season that confirms the financial health of French professional rugby.

Revenue of 185m euros, driven by the play-offs

Let us start at the top of the account. For the 2024/2025 financial year, the LNR’s revenue stands at 185m euros, up 8m, or 5% on the previous year. That growth is far from trivial at a time when many sports are struggling to lift their income at all.

What is driving it? First the Top 14 and Pro D2 play-offs, whose revenue jumps by 24%. Then marketing (+12%), a sign that brands believe in the rugby product. Broadcast rights are growing more modestly (+2% on 2023/2024), but remain comfortably the biggest source of income. In detail, those rights account for 120m euros (65% of the total), ahead of marketing (28m, 17%), matchday revenue (20m, 11%) and the EPCR distribution.

148m euros redistributed, a record for the clubs

This is where the report really lands. Over the year, the LNR redistributed 148m euros across the whole French rugby ecosystem. Much the largest share goes straight to the clubs: 127m euros, an all-time high, up 5% year on year and 42% over the past ten seasons. A decade ago that pot was around 20m euros. The change of scale is spectacular.

The rest of the distribution splits between 17.6m euros paid to French rugby’s stakeholders (the amateur game, the FFR, the unions) and 3m euros of state-backed loan repayment. The balance funds the running of the competitions, the play-offs and the league itself.

Solidarity, merit, investment: how it is shared out

Those 127m euros are not handed out at random. They split 70% to the Top 14, or 88.6m euros, and 30% to Pro D2, or 38.3m euros. Within each league, the distribution rests on three principles: solidarity, sporting merit and incentives to invest in academies and stadiums.

The dials are set differently by division. In the Top 14, solidarity accounts for 53%, merit 32% and incentives 13%. In Pro D2 the logic is more solidarity-driven still: 63% for solidarity, 12% for sporting merit and 25% for incentives. A way of helping second-division clubs invest in order to grow, without widening the gaps too quickly.

New partners to support the growth

The momentum also shows on the sponsorship side. In September 2025, Pennylane became an Official Partner of the league, before signing a few months later to become Presenting Partner of the Top 14 play-offs through to 2028. Car maker XPENG has taken the Official Car of the Top 14 status until 2029, backed by a dealership network present in all fourteen league cities.

Finally, In Extenso has extended its naming rights on the Supersevens by five seasons, until 2030/2031. These signatures vindicate the bet made in autumn 2024: fewer partners, better exposed, for higher income. By the end of the season, the Top 14’s inventory was sold out.

The real reckoning now lies elsewhere. Broadcast rights alone account for 120m euros, two thirds of the league’s revenue. It is their next renegotiation, far more than any sponsorship deal, that will determine whether French rugby can keep posting accounts like these.