FAM engages Supersport on TV rights

Prospects for local footballers are set to improve through international exposure and big money  when the  Football Association of Malawi (FAM)  receives  an outside broadcast van (OB) to beam  matches.

FAM will receive the OB van from the world football mother body, Fifa, in January next year for regular production and live beaming of local matches in return for millions of cash that would be obtained through television rights.

FAM chief executive officer Suzgo Nyirenda believes the initiative will be a life-changing opportunity that will brighten the faces of cash-strapped football club officials and players that solely depend on gate collections for survival.

“The van will come along with experts who will train our personnel on how to operate this state-of-the-art equipment. The coming in of this apparatus will be a turning point for us because it will grant players a great deal of exposure and help clubs generate reasonable income through television [rights],” he said.

According to Nyirenda, discussions are at an advanced stage with giant South African sports broadcaster, SuperSport, for a possible agreement on the sale of television rights for local soccer matches.

He said they will also attempt to partner local broadcasters such as MBC TV on a similar deal.

“This is our starting point in our quest to take local football standards to a much higher level. There are so many developments that will follow, but we feel it is better to keep them under wraps for now,” said Nyirenda.

He said elsewhere football clubs stopped relying on gate collections.

Nyirenda, however, said it is too early to reveal how much would be involved in the SuperSport deal. Just recently, SuperSport agreed to pay in excess of $285 million (over K100 billion) for TV, mobile and Internet rights for the South African Premier Soccer League (PSL) over the next five years.

On his part, Epac United FC owner Dini Josaya Banda said the initiative is long overdue. He said countries such as South Africa, Zambia and Kenya started benefiting from a similar project some years back and “I was wondering when Malawi could embrace this idea. This could be our only way out of poverty.”

Former Flames captain Peter Mponda and Big Bullets FC midfielder Chimango Kayira agreed with Josaya Banda that the development can change the fortunes of local football.

Kayira said apart from promoting local players’ exposure, the move will also assist to instill spirit of hard-work among footballers.

According to Mponda, who played for South African teams that have the TV rights revenue system in place, said FAM deserves kudos for the initiative as it is a guaranteed source of revenue than gate collections.

“But this requires that a football calendar is not interrupted in any way because TV rights’ revenue is obtained in accordance with the number of games that are broadcast,” he said.

Said Kayira: “Who would want to miss this golden opportunity? Just the prospect of having your skills displayed to the masses on the television will make us work hard. Malawi has a lot of talented players but the lack of exposure makes us disregard the hardworking spirit.”

But professional marketer Wilkins Mijiga cautioned FAM to tread carefully in handling  the issue.

“The most important message to FAM is that they must handle the equipment with seriousness and professionalism to encourage Fifa to give us more and more support for the improvement of the game,” he said.

Mijiga also urged the local clubs to learn from neighbouring countries that have similar broadcasting facilities on the best way to handle the initiative.

Three months ago, SuperSport signed a four-year TV deal worth $34 million (over K12 billion) for the Nigeria Premier League and has a three-year agreement with Ghanaian FA worth $ 21 million (about K8 billion). The deals are offered in accordance with the competitiveness of the leagues, their popularity and Fifa rankings of the countries involved.

Nigeria is rated 36 on the Fifa rankings while Ghana and South Africa are ranked 24 and 61 respectively. Malawi is rated 122.

The sale of television rights is even the biggest fundraiser for English Premier League sides as it generates almost 80 percent of the clubs’ total revenue annually. For example, during the 2012/13 season, champions Manchester United earned a record £60.8m (over K30 billion) in television revenues after being the most televised club, with 25 of their 38 matches broadcast.