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Dingilizwe Ntuli, Sports Editor
THE Castle Lager Premier Soccer League this week signed an agreement with the Zimpapers Television Network (ZTN) to livestream topflight matches this season.

Topflight football resumes next weekend after more than a year’s absence due to the Covid-19 enforced lockdown under which all sporting activities and large gatherings were suspended.

Government lifted the suspension of all sporting activities in March, allowing the PSL to restart the league under strict Covid-19 protocols whereby testing is a prerequisite ahead of any competitive match.

ZTN will broadcast PSL matches and tournaments by livestreaming on its growing online television platforms in a pay-per-view model.

The agreement comes as a welcome relief for football lovers since all matches will be played behind closed doors, and ZTN streaming services will make it easy to catch all their favourite teams in action wherever they are without being glued to the television set as was previously the case.

Live football streaming through smartphones, tablets, iPads and laptops now make it simple and easy to watch one’s favourite teams far from the television.

Gone are the days that fans depended only on radio and television for live games and thanks to emerging technologies, live streaming services offered by ZTN and various apps now allow people to stream live sports on their smartphones at anytime and anywhere in the world.

However, live streaming is dependent on the internet and this is where local internet service providers come in.

It’s no secret that the cost of data is still beyond the reach of most Zimbabweans and those who can afford are subjected to generally poor service without any recourse.

Users have to contend with slow speeds and constant network problems that affect connectivity on a daily basis and despite numerous complaints, service providers have done pretty little to improve their services.

In fact, the service seems to get worse with each passing day.

Live streaming needs strong and uninterrupted data connection, but it’s almost impossible to get uninterrupted data from our service providers without buffering affecting the streaming.

So slow are the speeds that even opening a small file less than 20MB can take more than one minute on some networks.

Maybe the PSL should approach internet service providers and negotiate for affordable special data bundles for live-streaming of league matches otherwise the majority of the country’s football fans will not be able to watch their teams in action until the ban on spectators in the stadia is lifted.

Almost everything is now centered on the internet, but local service providers are holding their subscribers hostage through their poor service offering.

Unless our internet service providers up their game, local football fans might find themselves having to depend on radio commentary and newspapers to follow their teams’ progress in the PSL.

Football is a sport followed by the masses and the deal between PSL and ZTN can only carry the masses if internet service providers play ball.

Without good internet service, there can’t be any live-streaming, so all subscribers need is reliable internet with good speed, free from intermittent buffering and constant data network connection errors they are currently subjected to.

After all they can still make profits by attracting more subscribers through good service provision.