The Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) has debunked reports that it rejected a broadcast offer worth $11 million to accept an offer which is lower in value.
The Head of the NPFL, Gbenga Elegbeleye, stressed that in the 6 years the league ran without a broadcast partner, no company came with an offer.
He said though the league body announced that it was open to offers, they only got a ₦1 billion offer from Propel Sports Africa for streaming services.
Ahead of the 2023-2024 season, the NPFL finally landed its first broadcast deal, six years after its deal with SuperSport expired. The league and StarTimes signed a broadcast deal which is worth around ₦6 billion.
However, a recent publication claimed that the NPFL rejected a more juicing deal to sign a broadcast deal with StarTimes.
A statement from Elegbeleye reads: “When the Interim Management Committee, which I headed came on board, there was not a single sponsorship for the league, but we later got an investment partner in GTI that guaranteed N1bn for the season.
“It is on record that the last effective broadcast partnership the NPFL had was with SuperSport and it was terminated in 2016. Thereafter the league went on without a proper broadcast partner until we signed Propel Sports Africa for streaming and shortly after StarTimes for Direct Home Satellite Broadcast.
“These deals were not signed overnight but took painstaking negotiations that lasted for months because we wanted to make sure it was the right thing to do.”
Elegbeleye continued: “We spent time and personal resources travelling to court Corporate Nigeria to sponsor the league with our investment partners, GTI, and we invested in efforts to rebrand the league. A consultant was hired for venue branding, which offers in-stadium exposure to our potential sponsors and a website was also built for viral exposure. So, where was this phantom $11m briefcase offer at the time?
“We couldn’t have rejected any offer when we were practically seeking to entice SuperSport back, to the extent that we succeeded in bringing them to broadcast the 2022/23 Super 6 Playoff.
“The NPFL is still very much open to listening to offers of partnership in other areas from well-meaning and credible sports marketing companies.”
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