Is satellite TV killing African football?

Accra's stadium is empty, while football fans watch English games on TV

On the one hand, they could suddenly watch some of the best club football on the planet - simply by turning on the TV.
At the same time, the realisation must have dawned that the local league they had been watching for years was a sub-standard product to the one found in countries like England, Spain and Italy.
It wasn't always thus though - for African club football's heyday came in the 1970s and 1980s when vast crowds, sometimes 100,000 strong, regularly flocked to league games and the leading pan-African club competitions.
By the 1990s, however, the state of Africa's leagues had become a major worry.
The exodus of players to Europe, which today is a flood, was beginning to become significant, meaning local fans were denied the chance to watch the best talents as they left for greener pastures, while many leagues were also blighted by poor organisation, corruption, chronic infrastructure, low crowds and sometimes a combination of all four.

 

The best African players now play in Europe

 

European football was most welcome when it arrived, as fans feasted upon the chance to watch legendary clubs like Real Madrid, AC Milan and Manchester United on a regular basis, but the impact on the diminishing local leagues - North Africa aside - has been less well received.

Why I support Manchester United

Kabir Ahmed, Kaduna, Nigeria:

I am a supporter of Manchester United football club. I have been supporting the club for the past 15 years. I like the game they play. I like their style of play, their fighting spirit.
I normally enjoy watching Manchester United matches in a viewing centre with my friends.
It is not that I don't have a satellite but I hate isolation, I don't like watching football in isolation. When I am in the viewing centre, watching with my friends and others like Chelsea and Arsenal fans it gives me lots of joy and happiness, shouting, arguing, cracking jokes and all that.
I just don't have time for local matches now. I used to, way back in 1998-99 when Katsina United was playing but they are no more playing, they are no more in the Nigerian premier league, that's why I don't watch local football any more.
I only watch international premier league now, I don't enjoy the kind of play of local matches, that is the fact. It is not entertaining at all, maybe that is why people don't watch them frequently. We are used to watching international football now and you know it is a known fact, international football is better than our local football.

The situation in Ghana is far from unique - it is played out in countless African cities every weekend.
In fact, the attendances became so insignificant in many African leagues that they have been scheduling domestic kick-offs to avoid the big European matches.
However, there has been a recent reversal in the declining attendances as a previously-unseen factor has entered the market: Satellite television that now broadcasts some of Africa's leagues.
In 2006, South African broadcaster Supersport started to air matches from both its own league and Nigeria's on the DSTV network, which is broadcast across the continent for those who can afford it.
Prior to SuperSport's involvement, the domestic league was riddled by infighting, poor crowds, poor marketing and a chaotic fixture list.

 

Can African fans be persuaded to watch more local football?

 

The situation is now wholly different, with improved organisation added to the TV money that enables clubs to pay their players both well and regularly, making the league not only more attractive to fans but foreign players too.

A survey later revealed that the Advertising Value Equivalent of sponsorship for the Kenya Premier League - which Rathbone now classifies as a "truly professional league" - amounts to a barely-credible $86m (£55m).
"That's what happens when you get behind the league and broadcast it and organise it properly," he says.
In his own South Africa, the TV audiences watching local games are double those of the EPL - even if the advertising revenue for the latter's games is significantly higher, given the demographic being targeted.
However, slick television production can only take a league so far if it has perceived flaws - as those running Nigerian football have discovered.
Believing that the league is unattractive, amateurishly run and constantly haemorrhages its best players, Nigerian football fans - those backing Kano Pillars aside - have not come out in numbers to attend games.
So when African leagues complain about the impact of the EPL on their attendances, is this simply an excuse for their general laziness and incompetence when it comes to improving their product?
"To succeed, leagues have to become businesses but very few have grasped this yet," says Rathbone. "They also need to explore other forms of revenue - like advertising and merchandise."
"If the local leagues are run properly and it's an interesting standard, the experience is positive and the media is supportive, there is no reason why the EPL and the local league should not live successfully side by side."

Whats your take on this?