The League Management Company and SuperSport have agreed a four-year broadcast sponsorship deal with a cumulative worth of $34m (about ₦5.4b) for the Nigeria Professional Football League.
The deal, which was announced at a joint press briefing in Abuja, will commence from the 2015 season, though it was learnt that the deal had been structured to take care of developmental imperatives of the league beginning from this season.
This latest development brings to an end several crisis involving the LMC and Total Promotions over broadcast rights of the Nigerian league.
In April, Total Promotions handed a one week ultimatum to the League Management Company to fulfill their end of the title rights resolution agreement by commencing payment of the ₦100,000,000 compensation which was due to them.
In attendance at the briefing inside the conference room of the Minister for Sports were the minister, Bolaji Abdulahi; President of the Nigeria Football Federation, Aminu Maigari, Country General Manager, SuperSport, Felix Awogu; Chairman of the LMC, Nduka Irabor and LMC officials including Shehu Dikko, Seyi Akinwumi and Mike Enahoro.
According to the deal, SuperSport will broadcast live matches and highlights of the Nigeria league to its audience that spans the African continent.
LMC officials say the deal has been tailored to also take care of the wider population of football followers in Nigeria, who have access to only free-to-air television as terrestrial stations can structure collaborations with SuperSport that will enable them to rebroadcast signals from live matches.
“The broadcast sponsorship represents another major boost for the actualisation of LMC’s mandate to exploit the commercial assets of the NPFL to the maximum benefit of the clubs and other stakeholders,” LMC chairman, Nduka Irabor, said.
“It also represents another step towards achieving some of the developmental benchmarks set for transformation of the Professional League Clubs to attain higher standards of operation as major drivers of youth empowerment and talent development at all levels,” Irabor added.
Speaking on behalf of SuperSport, Awogu reaffirmed the company’s commitment to the development of football in Nigeria using the League as a platform. He challenged clubs to rise to the challenge of the improved league and also optimise the opportunities to attract sponsorship.
SuperSport has thus become the second major sponsorship acquired by the LMC since it began operations as the organiser of the NPFL. The title sponsorship right was granted Globacom earlier in the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment