The Chief Executive Officer of StarTimes, Joshua Wang, has opened up on the cancellation of the broadcast deal with the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL), confirming initial report on why both parties ended the partnership.
StarTimes and the NPFL signed a five-year deal worth N6 billion in 2023, but the agreement has been terminated after two years.
The PUNCH understands that StarTimes ended their deal as the official broadcast partners of the NPFL following a poor return on investment, especially in the patronage of their decoder and offerings by Nigerians.
Wang also affirmed this in Abuja, during an event organised by the NPFL.
‘Since StarTimes has been the broadcast partners of the NPFL, during the past two seasons, we have tried to meet our promises to promote and broadcast the NPFL’, he said.
‘But unfortunately, we are here because of these economic issues; we are not making it as a business partner for the pay TV business to be sustainable.
‘Everything is business; we don’t have the capability to continue. I also heard last week that our partners NTA have taken over the broadcast’.
Chairman of the NPFL, Gbenga Elegbeleye, also revealed that the five-year deal didn’t pass the two-year probation that both parties set.
‘Signing with StarTimes that time, we said that the first two seasons are probatory, after that we would discuss again on how to go further’, Elegbeleye said.
‘Our last match in Lagos between Ikorodu City and El-Kanemi Warriors was live on NTA. We will still be going ahead with that until we finish the current discussion regarding the broadcast’.
Last week, Elegbeleye led the NPFL board to meet with the management of the NTA to seal a new broadcast partnership for the league, but the future of the arrangement is currently uncertain, no thanks to the premature reshuffling of the station’s management by President Bola Tinubu.
President Tinubu appointed Rotimi Pedro (whom the NPFL board met) as the new DG of the NTA on 20 August, but the appointment was reversed after the President ordered the reinstatement of Salihu Abdullahi Dembos to complete his three-year tenure as the NTA DG on Tuesday.
