StarTimes willing to stay for long haul

What made StarTimes pick interest in sponsoring the league?
The sponsorship of KCCA and SC Villa has given us a lot of exposure over the last four years.
This last season KCCA alone fetched us about Shs3.8bn in exposure value and a PR value (unsolicited publicity) of about Shs13.8bn.
If we can get that from one club property, imagine what we would get from the entire top league, which invites the interest of the whole media fraternity, and Big League.
No one gives away Shs28bn for charity. For us this is a marketing strategy when you consider that the opportunity cost of not doing this would involve paying hard cash to market our products.
There are also so many properties we negotiated well aware that we can and have the opportunity to sell them for commercial benefits. We acquired all media rights including relaying the games on TV, radio, social media.
And the potential for growing airtime sale and an active subscriber base across the country is huge.
We also want to get emotionally connected to our customers and their passion for football offers that.

But why 10 years?
Usually in business you expect to break even in five years. After that it is time to make profits. So that time must be reflected in your plan and hopefully for us it will be shorter.

What are the plans to ensure media rights are not violated?
We expect resistance in this regard but first we need to sensitize the media on what these rights are and about the commercialization of football. Social media is a bit complicated but we have the capacity to work with these platforms to pull down pirated work and sometimes there are punitive measures like shutting down accounts.
The contract also obligates Fufa and UPL to work with us in fighting this vice.

Does the unveiled sponsorship include production costs?
I have seen people try to critique the amount but that money has got nothing to do with the production. Why would we give Fufa the production money, anyway? We did not tell you that cost because no one is interested in what happens behind the curtains, all people want is football on TV.
TV production is a nightmare when you consider equipment and human resource plus hiring or constructing a studio but it is a cost we shall meet. An OB (Outside Broadcasting) Van, for example, is about $1.6bn.
But there are different options for us to explore in this. Between this time and when the league is expected to start next month, there is no way we shall do our production. Acquiring equipment might take four months.
So we are not being greedy and we shall outsource production for sometime. We have been in this business and we know who to talk to to do the production.

You signed a similar deal with Ghana but at $17.9m. Has the smaller package here got anything to do with our economy?
First of all for Ghana we signed a deal that gave us rights for everything about their football; women, men’s leagues, name it. For us here it is just Big League and UPL.
But then again there are supposed to be indicators to measure the value of the league.
It is about the current perceived value of the current UPL.
What we are doing is one of the ways to raise the value of the league and whoever is out there and not satisfied with our investment should help us all raise the value of the UPL.
For arguments sake let’s assume those saying Shs28b is not enough, are right, why do they have to wait for us to come on board and stake a claim?
Let them come out and show us their value and what they have done in terms of getting sponsors.
Most have failed to appreciate that Azam TV’s sponsored ended and they were not willing to renew, closed shop and there was no sponsor with just one month to the start of the league.
Value comes with increased corporate investment, player and referee salaries, costs of stadium hires, number of foreign players and so on matched against what happens elsewhere.
What value would you attach to a league with clubs like SC Villa and Express that already have issues about their identity and ownership? You have 12 different sets of so called shareholder who started three companies called Villa.
We thought we were sponsoring a club that Fufa gave a certificate but now they are saying they are resolving issues to do with Villa ownership. That’s how we pulled out of Villa, we didn’t know which shareholders to deal with anymore.

If you invest for 10 years, you probably want to ensure the money goes to the right places. Have you got breakdowns on what percentages go to referees, prize money and clubs?
We did not want to get into the intricacies of different breakdowns and as sponsors we have little interest in that but we know Fufa want to do the right things.