Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) has secured sub-licensed media rights to broadcast a live English Premier League match per week on free to air television for the 2019/2022 rights cycle.
Leading sports marketing company, Integral Sponsorship and Experiential Marketing Limited is said to have acquired the sub-license deal from Infront, a Sports Group company and current rights holder for Free-To-Air distribution in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In turn Integral has chosen NTA, as choice broadcaster for the matches.
Beyond the airing of one match per week, NTA also gets to show the weekly EPL Magazine show to its viewers.
This is not the first time the national terrestrial broadcaster will be licenced to air PL matches. In 2018, Kwesé signed a deal with NTA and AIT as sub-licence stations, with the deal running through the 2018/2019 Premier League season.
During this period, the station aired one PL match every week.
A football-obsessed country, Nigeria have always turned to Multichoice’s DStv to watch football league games, mainly the English Premier Leagure, Spanish La Liga, UEFA Champions League and Italian Serie A among others.
This is because for long the Pay Tv has always eclipsed ts competitors – HiTv, Kwese, Tstv, by having exclusive broadcast rights to the most watched football competitions in the world.
StarTimes, a Chinese-owned pay TV company, which is currently active and DSTV’s competitor in Anglophone Africa doesn’t offer enough sporting contents to dethrone Dstv, offering only Ligue 1, Serie A, Bundesliga and the English FA Cup.
Multichoice’s other offering, Gotv, which is its low-budget service, also offers one Premier League match every match day of the weekend.
While for many Nigerians it provides another alternative to watch at least a PL match every week, NTA’s offering will most likely not have any impact on the control of Dstv over the market. This is because of Dstv’s deep pool of content, both in the sports and entertainment space.
Nevertheless, it’s a nice development for the national broadcasting service, who has fallen down perking order over the last couple of years.