Basil Kobbani, chairman, Propel Sports Africa and broadcast partner for the Nigerian Professional Football League, NPFL, has stated that AI cameras deployed in 10 stadias across the country for live streaming of matches from the country’s elite league features same technology used to broadcast the best leagues in the world in England, Spain and Italy.
He also added that with the new camera technology, match viewing will not only be more accessible, but also cheaper, with lots of analytics for coaches and sports marketing potentials
Kobbani made the disclosure in Ilorin on Friday during the installation of live streaming equipment at the Kwara State Stadium.
“We have these technology installed in NBA in the US, we have it in Serie A, Italy, La Liga, Spain with Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, they all have this technology,” explained Kobbani.
As learnt, the technology has, as it’s features cameras from Pixalot, a South African company.
Each of the facilities has four lenses that cover both ends of the field, while the other two covers the pitch.
It provides opportunities for commentaries. NPFL provided spaces for two commentators in English and local languages or pidgin.
Propel is also planning to have two more cameras behind the goal posts and a roving camera, too, because the cameras installations in the 10 stadia would would be mounted facing one side just one side.
Unlike the manually manipulated cameras, the AI enhanced gadget for the NPFL league is designed to follow the ball wherever it goes.
Matches from the venues are also uploaded in the cloud where people outside the country could have access to them.
Adding further, the Propel Sports chief enumerated potentially big sports marketing potentials that come with the package.
“You are going to see NPFL on highlight packages, like on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter; these will show all of Nigerian football across the world.
“You have 10 cameras in the stadium and eight to ten matches will be streamed live and that will give you the opportunity to showcase NPFL across the world.
“How many people do you have in Kwara, maybe 10 million. Maybe 200, 000 could stream live for a very low level of naira. So it’s going to bring a lot of people into the stadiums, making it more exciting.
“You can get all matches with a minimum of N120, to N200 for every match.
“So it’s very inexpensive, but the more you buy the cheaper it becomes, excluding the data bundle. Even at that it is still very cheap,” Kobbani said.
