Professional Football Jamaica Limited (PFJL) Chief Executive Officer Owen Hill has indicated there will be no live broadcast match in the first round of the island’s top-flight football competition which kicks off on Sunday.

Hill said the PFJL, which manages and promotes the Jamaica Premier League (JPL), is still in negotiations with broadcaster Pivot Solution. He said the deal is yet to be finalised, and, therefore, there will be no live televised match for the opening round.

“We are still in dialogue with our host production partner. There are still some technical work-throughs that we need to collaborate on, and we are still at the negotiation table with confirming. As it is now, we are pushing, but barring a miracle, we don’t foresee broadcast games happening in match week one,” Hill said.

He said Pivot Solution is a hybrid organisation corporation with multiple synergies across local and international regions.

The search for a new production partner comes after SportsMax’s parent company, Digicel, shut down the Caribbean sports broadcaster and streaming platform on August 8, ending more than two decades of operations.

SportsMax had held the production and distribution rights for the JPL since 2020, broadcasting hundreds of live games regionally via its cable channel and mobile app.

Hill lauded Sportmax for their coverage of the JPL over the years, and according to him, they have left big shoes to fill in broadcast coverage of the league.

“I am extremely optimistic and, again, knowing all too well how difficult of a position this is and what the requirements are to deliver. I have said it before and I will say it again, the void that SportsMax would have left in the market, it is important to elaborate how big of a void that is, and it is just proving to us.

“We are still working through because we are looking at the new paradigm, and we are looking at the next five to 10 years and how sports will be viewed in our jurisdiction.

“It is easy to benchmark against the international standards with massive amounts of resources and infrastructure, but such is life, and we are grateful that is the comparison, so that is kind of where it is right now,” the PFJL chief explained.

— Robert Bailey