First S.League live stream draws close to 24,000 viewers

SINGAPORE — The S.League’s new initiative to stream matches live this season got off to a strong start on Sunday, with close to 24,000 viewers going online to watch the Great Eastern Community Shield clash between Albirex Niigata (S) and Tampines Rovers.

The season’s curtain raiser, which doubles up as a league match, drew 14,546 online viewers during the game itself, with an additional 9,273 viewing the match after it ended. 

Combined with the 15,480 who turned up to watch the White Swans beat the Stags 2-1 at the National Stadium, it means the first match of the new season drew 39,299 spectators overall as of last night.

Given that the league has averaged crowds of less than 1,000 in recent seasons, the numbers can be seen as a boost to a competition that continues to be plagued by perennial problems such as funding uncertainty and late fixture releases.

Lim Kia Tong, interim president of the Football Association of Singapore’s (FAS) provisional council told TODAY that it was heartening and reaffirming to get such numbers for an S.League game.

“If you translate the numbers and combine them, the fact that 15,000 people who couldn’t be there at the National Stadium but watched the match online shows that they’re interested in the game. So that augurs very well for the S.League.

“This shows that the S.League is not dying and it’s beginning to be more active. On our part, we have to keep looking for ways to generate awareness and interest in the league again.”

The “live” streaming has been made possible thanks to the Live Streaming Platform project under the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) President’s Initiatives Programme, which aims to help member associations (MAs) strengthen the game in their respective countries.

Streaming takes place on the website of video streaming specialists mycujoo, AFC’s partner for the projects, where FAS will have a dedicated channel (mycujoo.tv/ch/320) to show the games. 

The matches will be available as video replays after they end.

It is understood that most of the costs will be borne by the AFC, while the task of training staff to become familiar with the streaming set-up lies with the FAS.

Last July, Bhutan became the first country to embrace this initiative, which was introduced as part of the AFC’s inaugural Media Management and Marketing Workshop programme. Other MAs to have joined since are Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Taiwan, Bahrain, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka, Oman, Laos, India, the Philippines, Afghanistan and Jordan.

TODAY understands that the plan is to stream one S.League game per week, with an eye to ramping it up to every match next season once staff are familiar with the process and set-up.

There are also plans to stream matches from both the National Football League and Women’s National League, in line with the AFC’s aims to promote football content at all levels, not just at the professional stage.

“That will definitely add a new dimension in changing the landscape of Singapore football,” said Lim. 

“This will help the NFL clubs in their journey to professionalism. For all NFL matches, we’ll conduct the streaming as if it’s like real S.League matches.”