TV and digital broadcasting of the Lebanese football championship faces a major hurdle – infrastructure quality – which renders audiovisual production more difficult and makes football enthusiasts less eager to watch games played on grass that affects players’ technical performance.
MTV’s broadcasting effort faces one main problem going back well before the 2019 economic crisis, with no prospects of resolution: the stadiums’ infrastructure quality that affects the product negatively.
Firstly, audiovisual production quality: in an interview with Ici Beyrouth, Charbel Krayem, star host of the MTV weekly football program “Golden Ball”, explains that “the biggest problem in Lebanese football is stadium infrastructure. Last season (2021-2022), we only broadcast the games that were played in Jounieh, in the Fouad Chehab stadium. It is the only stadium that allows us to position our cameras adequately. We broadcast games professionally, using 12 cameras. There are stadiums where you can’t even place 3 cameras.”
Second, the pitches are in bad condition, which makes many viewers and spectators lose interest in watching the games. Krayem highlights that “bad grass quality frustrates audiences. Artificial grass is less attractive to TV viewers, and neither MTV nor the Lebanese Football Federation can do anything about it. Pitches are the property of the Lebanese state, of municipalities, that do not cooperate in any way, not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t afford to. There was the Saida municipal stadium which had natural grass, but it’s no longer used for Lebanese championship games. This issue is affecting Lebanese football greatly. Solving the stadium problem will pave the way for the development of Lebanese football.”
Clearly, the problem that stadiums are facing thwarts MTV’s efforts to promote Lebanese football. Krayem adds that, as a result, “we could not portray football the best way we could because of those pitches, which kept us from promoting Lebanese football in an optimal way.”
“Golden Ball”, closer to a talk show than it is to technical analysis
“Golden Ball” is MTV’s weekly program covering Lebanese football. Star host Charbel Krayem states that “it’s the sports program with the largest viewing on MTV. The first episode of season 2022-2023 was watched by 171000 people on Facebook. Those numbers may increase mid-season compared to last year’s, considering that we have rescheduled the program from Monday to Tuesday: our viewers will need time to adapt to the new times”.
When asked by Ici Beyrouth about why the program focuses more on the politics of football instead of technical and tactical analysis of Lebanese championship games, Krayem replied: “after all, the program’s objective is not to provide technical and tactical analysis of games. Analyses are usually made pre-game. We broadcast 4 championship games per day, two on social media and two on TV, the latter being the more important ones. Before the game, at half time, and after the game, we organize analysis talks with an expert detailing the technical aspects. “Golden Ball” is only broadcast on Tuesdays. A day’s goals are usually already seen by fans of Lebanese football, mostly on social media, so much so that each time a player scores, a replay is shown online on our Facebook and Instagram pages. That way, fans won’t have to wait for the program to be aired to see the goals. We mainly show a quick recap of the goals scored in the weekend. Our program is mostly a talk show with our guests. Each time, the guests in question show a scoop and cover facts that haven’t been shared yet. Our exchanges with our guests are clear and straight-forward”.
