L'Équipe expands table tennis coverage with FFTT partnership through 2028

L’Équipe is no longer just showing French table tennis to the faithful. By becoming the broadcaster for the 2026 Pro A Messieurs final and joining the Fédération Française de Tennis de Table as a media partner, the national sports title is pushing the domestic league into the kind of spotlight that can reach casual viewers, sponsors and a much wider French sports audience.

The partnership lands on top of an already large rights package. L’Équipe already holds TV rights for the world and European circuits through 2028, and it has now signed a three-year media-rights agreement with World Table Tennis and the International Table Tennis Federation for 2026 to 2028. That deal brings the full WTT season to free-to-air television and digital platforms in France, the French Overseas Territories, Andorra, Monaco and Mauritius, with exclusive French-language coverage. It also covers the ITTF World Table Tennis Championships Finals and a broad slate of WTT Series events.

The European Table Tennis Union has extended its own media partnership with L’Équipe for the 2026, 2027 and 2028 seasons, calling the renewal an important milestone in its long-term media strategy. Put together, the three agreements give L’Équipe a rare level of control over how table tennis is presented to French-speaking audiences across club, continental and world competition.

For French table tennis, the timing matters. The FFTT is already promoting the 2026 Pro A Messieurs final on its official pro site and pushing ticket sales alongside the broadcast announcement, a sign that the federation wants the TV lift to feed directly into live-event momentum. That is the clearest sign yet that the sport is trying to move beyond its core base and turn national finals into something closer to appointment viewing.

There is also evidence that the audience is already growing. On June 7, 2025, CTT Bruille and Caen TTC were promoted to Pro A after the Pro B final, while L’Équipe reported on the 2025 Pro A men’s final won by Alliance Nîmes-Montpellier and the Lebrun brothers. With Félix Lebrun among the country’s most recognizable young names, the domestic game now has faces casual viewers can follow, not just results to track.

That is the shift this deal represents. If L’Équipe can keep placing Pro A and the international circuit in front of viewers who were not already searching for table tennis, the sport’s biggest problem in France changes from access to attention.