The league must embrace and not fight new TV deal

Last week on Thursday, Pay TV company StarTimes entered a Shs27b sponsorship deal with Fufa for the right to broadcast the Ugandan Premier League (UPL) and Fufa Big League. FILE PHOTO

What you need to know:

The issue: UPL broadcast deal
Our view: There are murmurs of dissatisfaction as would be expected from 90% of any agreement. But whatever the divergence in opinion, the sanctity of the contract must be preserved.

Last week on Thursday, Pay TV company StarTimes entered a Shs27b sponsorship deal with Fufa for the right to broadcast the Ugandan Premier League (UPL) and Fufa Big League.
It was a welcome development for the game of football and one which should elevate the rank of Uganda’s topflight league and the Big League.

Question marks have been asked about the length of the StarTimes deal and what became of Sports Broadcasting Television, who were awarded the deal in January.

Both are valid queries but perhaps the bigger issue at hand should be whether the StarTimes deal will be seen through.
Six Pay TV companies have either made an attempt to enter a partnership with Ugandan football or actually signed a deal with the federation in the last 10 years.

Of the six, only GTV and Azam departed on their own and through no fault of the Uganda Premier League and the local soccer governing body.

Smart TV’s interest and capacity to pull off such an agreement was always all over the place and no one can say with certainty whether the now defunct firm were genuinely ever keen on screening Ugandan football on their satellite channel.
The less said about Sports Broadcasting Limited the better, especially since SBL have never owned a signal of any kind let alone a license.

Perhaps no deal set back the industry of football and sport in Uganda like the egoistical feuding between the Uganda Super League and Fufa in 2011 when DSTV owned broadcast rights.

The scars of that war between UPL and Fufa continue to manifest themselves prominently today in the form of the leadership chaos at Villa Park and Wankulukuku Stadium.

A repeat of the same fracas in the league now would in all probability amount to a thick, long nail in the casket of Ugandan football.

Television controls football world over because it brings in top dollar, attracts sponsorships for clubs and more often than not enhances the value of the league.

StarTimes appear to mean business and the parties to the agreement they signed last week must ensure that the new television deal is successfully done.

There are murmurs of dissatisfaction as would be expected from 90 per cent of any agreement, more so one about Ugandan football.

But whatever the divergence in opinion, the sanctity of the contract must be preserved.
Losing a TV broadcast deal is not hard.

Securing a TV broadcast deal of any kind is always a daunting challenge.