South Africa's Premier Soccer League boasts a place among the top TV markets in world football, "yet faces some real dilemmas as the new season gets underway on Tuesday," according to Mark Gleeson of ESPN.com. Rapidly declining attendances "go hand-in-hand with a general pessimism about the state of the domestic game, especially after a lack of success for the country's national team." The PSL should, by rights, "be the hub of the African game." There is "no shortage of television cash, amounts that other, similarly mid-sized markets could only dream of." There is also an "enthusiastic following" that sees TV audiences and football media "flourish but, bizarrely, crowds are rapidly declining." Weekly anecdotal evidence from the size of match crowds shows that, "as more and more TV subscriptions are sold, fans opt to watch from the comfort of their sofas." All of this "promises the potential of a long-term negative impact, even though the money paid by satellite television, to broadcast the vast majority of the season's games," is more than R$1B ($70.6M) for the current contract period. That, along with sponsorship for all competitions, "keeps the professional game on a relatively healthy footing although, as is the case elsewhere, it is the clubs with rich owners who prove most successful" (ESPN.com, 8/23).
