FAM marketing manager Dan Tambala has announced that from next season, only two broadcasters will acquire rights for live match commentaries for domestic matches.
In his presentation at the Club Licensing System workshop at Chiwembe Technical Centre on Saturday, Tambala said the current situation, that has radio and television stations scrambling for sponsors, was distorting the price of the rights.
He said the sponsors have more options; hence, local games are going at a meagre K80 000 per match, which he noted cannot benefit the game.
“If you look at, say, SuperSport, you can have only one channel that you can watch English Premier League games. For us to make money, we need to regularise the market because of the fragmentation of the broadcasting industry,” Tambala told the gathering of club chairpersons and general secretaries.
Therefore, FAM will, before the start of the new season, invite bidders for rights with the best two acquiring Class One and Class Two rights as official broadcasters. The Class One rights holder will broadcast matches for top eight Super League teams while the Class Two rights holders will take care of the remaining seven.
“In doing so, we will enable even smaller clubs to earn something from the rights. This will also help radio stations to generate enough unlike the current scenario where five or six radio stations go to the same companies. We cannot have football without the media and the media cannot work without football,” Tambala noted.
To generate more money for clubs, FAM will also invest in 52 perimeter fence billboards per game with the space sold to sponsors and proceeds shared among clubs.
Zodiak Broadcasting Station managing director Gospel Kazako, whose firm has brought competition in live match commentary, yesterday said he would react to FAM’s arrangement when it is made public.
