IF PRIDE and prestige isn’t reason enough for the country’s teenaged footballers, advancing to the final stages of the Secondary Schools Football League’s Intercol tournament just got an added incentive as the national final will be broadcast live to parts of North America and Europe.
At a joint media conference yesterday, officials of the league and telecommunications provider Digicel announced the start of a five-year partnership that, among other things, will involve live and taped television coverage of the final stages of the annual tournament.
“We will be bringing one live game a week from the (SSFL) Premiership for each season,” said Oliver Mc Intosh, president and CEO of Digicel Sportsmax.
“We will be bringing the finals for each of the zones in the Intercol and then we’ll obviously be bringing the semi-final and the final from the Intercol. Importantly, that starts in ten days.
Then we bring the final from this year to an international audience on Digicel Sportsmax, Digicel Sportsmax 2, CEEN TV which is broadcast in the US and Canada and the UK, all live.” In order to do so, Digicel has brought in a state-of-the-art 13-camera HD OB (High-Definition Outside Broadcast) unit to facilitate the coverage of Digicel Sportsmax. Mc Intosh revealed the partnership with the SSFL was some three years in the making.
“We’ve had the fortune of watching Trinidad perform over the years and we know that there are many more Shaka Hislops, Russell Latapys, Stern Johns, etcetera that the world needs to see,” Mc Intosh added.
The five-year deal, covering broadcast and other rights, will put US$1.5 million into the league’s coffers; but the telecommunications provider will be investing more in terms of “activating” the event.
“The US$1.5 million is the contractual investment, and that obviously covers the broadcast rights and certain other rights like team jerseys and so forth,” explained Sasha Thompson, the Digicel TT CEO.
“We want to bring people out to the games... to create the excitement.
So we want to take this to another level, from all fronts. We alone have spent in our football sponsorships, half a million US just on football activation.” Apart from TV coverage and promotion, Digicel also plans to create training and exposure opportunities for the players.
Mc Intosh said Digicel will be hosting college and university coaches as well as professional scouts once a year during which, games featuring the Intercol finalists and other Caribbean teams will be played.
“We will also have a training period for all the players to come and attend,” Mc Intosh added.
“So they will go through weight training, they will go through skills tests, and it gives an opportunity for the players to be seen by multiple scouts at different levels.” “This is a continuation of the investment that Digicel has made in sport across the region, in grassroots sports, in football, basketball, cricket, in the federations that we sponsor,” Mc Intosh continued.
“We sponsor 12 federations across the Caribbean, so this is really just a continuation of that.
“Digicel is a Caribbean company.
We live here, we have our offices here and we invest in where we live.” SSFL president Anthony Creed expressed his appreciation for Digicel’s investment and their plans to promote and position the players.
“For the past eight years, the SSFL has had three partners; and it is with pleasure that as the season comes to a close we welcome two new partners- Digicel and Digicel Sportsmax,” he said.
“And this partnership could only redound to the best for our young men and women in the SSFL.” The national Intercol final is set for November 30th.
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