Posted in News on Nov 22, 2007.
As a result there will be more interest in the game not just from a South African or African perspective but from the entire world, the country now has the opportunity to share its greatest sporting rivalry with the world, in South African domestic sport be it cricket, rugby and even in soccer there is no clash on the sporting field that divides the like a meeting between these two old foes.
With a full house expected for the game as tickets sold out days ago the city of Durban, yes that’s right the Soweto derby has moved far away for the first time in a league match since the inception of the PSL and is being played many kilometres away from the township of its origin. The league though have used the opportunity of the worlds media being in Durban to show case the domestic game around the globe, as the match will be beamed live to Europe and the United States.
Global reach
Saturday’s game between Pirates and Chiefs will be the first PSL game to be screened to a world wide audience; the match will go out live to and is expected to be watched by an estimated 30 million people in Europe.
Euro Sport 2 will pick up the feed from SuperSport and beam the match through out Eastern and Western Europe, the interest in the game from around the world has been such that Chiefs media and communication department have received communication from various media houses from around the world with requesting interviews and supplying them with other information on players statistics and club statistics.
Amazingly though it will be the first time that the Soweto Derby will be covered by commentators speaking Russian, French, Portuguese, German, Italian and Spanish to cater for the international viewing audience.
Different angle
PSL CEO Kjetil Siem has described this as a quantam leap, for the league, SuperSport the broadcaster and the sponsor ABSA. With the game being shown around the world it gives South African television networks the chance to demonstrate that they have the technological capacity to produce a world class production, that could be a product just as good as a European Champions League match.
In so keeping SuperSport will be going the extra length to make sure that the arm chair fans get a real feel of the Soweto Derby, as they will go behind the scenes showing the.
There will also be two major firsts for South Africa in Saturday’s production of the match, unfortunately though fans in South Africa will not get to see this as it is for the global audience, the first innovation will see both teams busses being followed by a helicopter from their hotels to the Absa Stadium and international Television Viewers will also get a sneak peak into both team dressing rooms prior to kick off.
