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Premier Soccer League President Irvin Khoza has assured viewers of the DStv Premiership’s free-to-air television coverage that the new sponsorship with the premium-tier league pay channel will not affect their coverage.
DStv, the satellite television service operated by MultiChoice, was announced as the new Premiership sponsor in a five-year deal by Khoza at a televised press conference on the pay station’s sports channel, SuperSport, on Thursday. at night.
The PSL president stressed that the sponsorship of DStv will not diminish the granting of free sub-licenses and the coverage of PSL matches, which is more frequent on the public broadcaster SABC.
“Today is a historic day for me and for the PSL executive committee, and especially for the 32 club presidents. It has been a long and exciting journey, ”said Khoza.
“Joining DStv is a momentous occasion because in 2007 we were part of PSL’s broadcast rights holders agreement [with SuperSport].
“That in itself generated a lot of debate, and that debate was saying that football had been privatized. And we debunk that myth.
“Today it is very important to explain to the public that by having DStv as a Premiership sponsor, DStv is just an event sponsor.
“In terms of assignment of rights, the categorization of rights for the terrestrial category remains the same.
“We want to watch free-to-air television and have everyone watch those games. In terms of the agreement we entered into, nothing will change ”.
Khoza said “four or five companies” were being negotiated to replace banking giant Absa, which ended its sponsorship at the end of the final 2019-20 Premier League season, but said DStv was “a perfect match.”
“… For our team that was negotiating with the new sponsor there were four or five companies to talk to, and DStv was a perfect fit in the sense that they are a platform that broadcasts our content,” he said.
“They are the content generators of the PSL. It’s a perfect fit.
“But the important thing is to maintain and ensure that access to our content is affordable. And DStv has made it possible to keep that for our fans.
“So today I am pleased to assure the public that, as much as DStv is the sponsor, it does not eliminate free channels.
“All the viewers in SA who depend on DStv‚ or on the broadcast ‚will have the same kind of approach regarding rights that we had with our sponsors [Absa] that have left our football “.
SuperSport has been the official television rights holder for PSL since 2007, with a percentage of games sub-licensed to the SABC.
Absa sponsored the Primera División for 13 years from 2007 to 2020.
