NPFL Media Broadcast Right and Revenue - Is LMC Fallen Short in Negotiating Deals?

 

It is awkward really that the three key factors that deliver over 95% revenue for most sports entities are missing in NPFL. Sponsorship(Title and Shirt deals), Media (TV and Internet) Broadcast Rights and Sale of Licensed Products and Services are either missing entirely or are handled with kid's gloves. 

We were thinking LMC would have been able to remove all bottlenecks and settle all the challenges withholding title sponsorship deals as well as support their participating clubs in closing Shirt sponsorship deals. But since their existence, the league hasn't moved forward in this regard. 

Apart from Rivers United that has a shirt sponsorship deal running with Eunisell, no club in NPFL has a shirt sponsor. It is a wonder why Bet9ja didn't renew the shirt sponsorship deal they had with 3SC in spite, the CEO Kunle Soname, being a staunch supporter of the club. And GOtv jettison Ikorodu United. It shows that there's something fundamentally wrong with the football system in Nigeria. 

It is a far cry then, for clubs to close mutual beneficial deal with local sportswear companies like Owu, Haggai, AFA... Or license the use of their brand logo and sale of their replica jerseys. 

Media Broadcast Rights and Revenue

Media broadcast rights is a cash cow for most leagues across the world. Take example of Premier League broadcast right revenue is worth over €8 billion in 2019.

Supersports had to stop the $34 million broadcast right contract with LMC in 2018, because the broadcast of NPFL doesn't make any business sense. Nigerian are not watching the league and therefore, it wasn't contributing in anyway to the growth of subscribers in this football loving country. Therefore, it doesn't make business sense to pay so much for a program you can't include in your prime boutique. 

Well, there are other issues that bordered on integrity, and respect for contractual agreements.

Yet, we see it manifest again when LMC signed an undisclosed sum in media broadcast deal with Next TV for live streaming of NPFL  games online. And a year after in 2020, we see an amicable termination of contract, while LMC now engage RedStrike digital media in yet an undisclosed amount. 

And we know when a deal is undisclosed, it may mean, it doesn't worth much dollar or Naira to be disclosed to the public. This got us wondering aloud if LMC has not fallen short in business development and in negotiations of the right deals for NPFL.