Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The League Management Company (LMC) yesterday sealed a five-year deal with a revenue target of $200 million (about N710 trillion) with Next TV Digital in Abuja.
Chairman of the league regulatory body, Mallam Shehu Dikko, who made the disclosure during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the partners, a telecommunication outfit, 9 Mobile and Next TV Digital said that the deal was capable of checkmating the interest of Nigerians in foreign leagues.
He further explained that going by the deal, the LMC hopes to rake in a total of $19 million in the first year, adding that the earnings will graduate to $59 million in the concluding year of the deal.
Assuring that the LMC is targeting international standard in repackaging the league content for sale in all parts of the globe, the league boss noted that the era of title sponsor for the league is now unfashionable.
“I will first thank the Minister of Sports who has been supportive of what we are doing. He has been putting lots of pressure to ensure that things are done the right way. I must also thank our partners of many years standing.
“It is not easy to take the decision they took to work with us to take Nigerian football to the next level. There are other potential partners watching to see the extent we can go with the deal.
“We have to work with the best partners to adopt international standard. We are planning how to produce matches through the investment and technical support of our partner. All over the world, league football is driven by production and if you don’t have produce content, there will be no money for you.
“As for the budget, we are going to see how we can commercialize all the league matches to enhance our sponsorship revenue. We are not going to rely on title sponsor because it is outdated.
“By our arrangements, we are going to attract multiple the sponsors including revenue from advertising. At the end of the day, the money we are looking at are the revenue from commercialisation, sales, advertising which will amount to $200 million in the five years the deal will last,” he said