FAZ president Andrew Kamanga says they will review the partnership with SuperSport once the contract ends at the end of the season and possibly explore other options.
And Kamanga says SuperSport has partly responded to the cries by fans since the introduction of AI cameras and promised to restore the broadcast quality to the pre-AI era.
Featuring on Flava FM in Kitwe, the FAZ chief said has repeatedly engaged SuperSport to address the concerns raised by fans over the quality of the broadcast since switching to AI.
He said that with the contract winding up at the close of the season, FAZ is already looking ahead to bringing closure to the outpouring cries by fans.
“To just put clarity around this issue of the live broadcast. As FAZ, we do have the broadcast partnership with SuperSport. It’s been there for many years and even the current contract is up for renewal at the end of this season,” he said.
Kamanga said FAZ was aware of the structural challenges that the parent company under which SuperSport fell was going through.
“Immediately we noticed that the quality of the transmission had been compromised and even the on-field analysis was not there, we raised the issue with SuperSport. They came back and indicated that they were going through some institutional changes as a company, certain things were actually changing. But of course as partners, we do have an existing commercial agreement which provided for how this partnership would work and anything outside that is obviously deemed to be a breach on the part that is not fulfilling their obligation,” he said.
“So we have been going back and forth and indeed SuperSport have taken the issue and they have given us assurance that they will indeed fix whatever challenges we have. If you have noticed from the time the camera (AI) was deployed, the quality has significantly improved but of course it’s not giving us certain elements like the replay and all those aspects, so these are matters which we have been informed that will be addressed.”
He added: “From where we stand, we think that when the contract is coming up for review before the beginning of the next season, we should be able to ensure that all these elements are addressed.”
Kamanga says AI camera challenges are an opportunity for FAZ to chart a new course as regards their broadcast partnerships.
“It is also giving us an opportunity as FAZ to evaluate the partnership and also look at other alternatives in terms of how best we can ensure that the soccer fans are still given what they expect in terms of value. In summary that is the position regarding what has happened with the introduction of the AI cameras,” he said.
“We are not getting the best quality obviously, but we believe they can still be enough time to review the partnership and if we are not proceeding with them, it is giving us enough time to also look at alternatives. What is important is that the transmission was going to be done through the OB vans but we should understand Multichoice has been going under a lot of changes, from the change of the owners.”
He said FAZ would have been happy if SuperSport had tested the technology before the season started to prepare everyone.
“The best scenario for before moving to AI camera is that they would have allowed the season to end and then test this during an off season as they didn’t anticipate the effects of the use of the AI camera so that by the time we go to live transmission all these challenges would have been addressed,” he said.
The FAZ boss said beyond just television broadcast FAZ was open to exploring commercial options like streaming and incorporating other broadcast firms to show matches not shown by the main partner.
“I can also tell you that we engaged them with the view of getting third parties who could provide the same option with the OB vans but at the end of the day it became a matter of a cost because these vans come with a fixed cost as well as the staff deployed to run them,” he said.
“In fact we even went as far as making enquires with ZNBC and we were suggesting that ZNBC could do the production then Super sport cover that element. We would be at a point where we would get the same quality being given to the soccer fans for those watching from home. Other than AI camera we have options like streaming but at the end of the day it about which one is the least costly.”
Kamanga said the desire was to ensure that more matches were shown on the partner broadcaster beyond the four matches shown on average on SuperSport currently.
“When it comes to live broadcast if you have a double header may be two games on Sunday and two on Saturday which means only four games will be shown. But we have nine matches being played so every weekend we have a deficit of five matches which are not broadcast so this where we think that in the new arrangements we should get to a point where all the nine matches are somehow catered for on that weekend,” he said.
“We believe that if we can fix and ensure that we have more games on TV then, we will be serving the interest of the soccer fans.”
“In the current set up there is a restriction for clubs to stream their matches but this will have to be reviewed on the contract ultimately. We want soccer fans to be able to choose. We can even have the five matches not broadcasted by Supersport but go into another platform and still have the nine matches available to soccer fans who then decide which one of the nine they want to watch.”
The introduction of AI cameras has unsettled some fans given the disparity in quality between the previous OB van stadium anchored productions.
