Pay TV Company StarTimes will televise one hundred live Uganda Premier League games per season on a dedicated channel to local football, Sanyuka TV. The broadcaster and title sponsors have confirmed.
For the start, StarTimes will limit their production to just three games per week which will be played at only three stadiums of Mandela National stadium, St Mary’s stadium in Kitende and StarTimes stadium in Lugogo.
This is a 50 percent increase in the number of live matches a season from the previous TV partners Azam TV. The difference is that Azam showed games from almost all stadiums the previous seasons.
StarTimes vice president Aldrine Nsubuga said the reasons to why there are only three stadiums in their arrangement is because the TV has minimum standards for production and they cannot compromise on them just to have games at every stadium.
“Only those three stadiums meet the criteria and you cannot blame us for the lack of infrastructure in the country,” he said.
StarTimes also strictly retain the media rights to these games, implying that all media houses and social media enthusiasts have to seek permission to broadcast content of the league.
“We are not doing charity. We might not ask media houses to pay us for media rights but we shall discuss where and how StarTimes can benefit in return for permission to broadcast these games.” he added.
Nsubuga added that on top of the $7.24 million Star Times paid for the rights, the Pay TV will also spend about $14,000 to broadcast each game.
The Pay TV company last month secured the naming and broadcasting rights of the Uganda Premier League for a period of 10 years in a deal worth US$7.24 million (about Shs26.5 billion).
The 2018/19 Star Times Uganda Premier League season will kick off on Friday 28th September, 2018 and the fixtures are yet to be released.