Propel Sports Vows to Improve NPFL Live Broadcast Quality

Propel Sports Africa (PSA) has pledged to enhance the quality of its live broadcast streaming of the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL) in the coming weeks, platinumnewsng.com is reporting.

After successfully overseeing five live games on the opening day of the current season, PSA’s President, Ed Simmons, assured fans that teething issues experienced during the initial broadcast would be resolved.

Simmons also revealed that the NPFL-Live app would broadcast seven matches on the second matchday as he shed light on the decision to deploy Artificial Intelligence (AI) cameras at NPFL match venues, highlighting its potential to revolutionize sports broadcasting in Nigeria and the world.

“It’s been a mammoth undertaking for us at Propel Sports. We are working on multi-cam productions. There is an issue incorporating it and that will be resolved in due course.

“In this instance we had to start from the scratch. It’s not the stadia, we are enhancing the stadia with such infrastructure as Starlink Internet but not the stadia itself.

“The barrier to showing multiple games on Nigerian television up on till now has been the cost of broadcast. To use a traditional OB unit with multi-cam will cost anything up to $25,000 or $35,000 (per game). So, to do eight games will cost up to $240,000 each week (matchday) and that’s impossible and no one can make a commercial return from that. What we did was to sign an exclusive licence for these new AI cameras, and in using these cameras we can substantially reduce the cost of production. Therefore, we have the ability to film multiple games.

“This revolution is not just happening in Nigeria. LaLiga has just signed for AI cameras. Bundesliga has signed for AI cameras. The Portugal premier division has signed for AI cameras. It happens in the case of Nigeria that it is first in Africa to deploy AI cameras to league games. It (AI camera) will be the future of broadcasting. What we will have to do is to make sure we can add a multi-cam which increases the cost not significantly,” Simmons told npfl.com.ng.

The NPFL and Propel Sports have a five-year contract for live broadcast streaming, signed in May this year. The initiative aims to boost the league’s global exposure and elevate Nigerian football to new heights.