Southern United to play only TV game

Chris Wright
Chris Wright
You might forgive Southern United if it got stage fright on Sunday, although that should not be an issue for its opponent.

The club will play its one and only televised game of the season, at the Trusts Arena against Waitakere United at 4.35pm.

It will give its fans a glimpse of the side's progress, which has been rare this season.

Southern has played just 47 minutes of home football - in its abandoned game against Auckland City - as it enters its fifth weekend of the national football premiership.

Indeed those fans may be more familiar with Waitakere - which has already played two of its six televised games.

In total 10 of the league's 17 televised games are hosted by the three Auckland teams.

Another three are Wellington Phoenix curtain raisers.

Two of the remainders are in Hamilton, while the final two are in Napier and Christchurch.

It was not the best situation, although Southern United CEO Chris Wright said the club understood the challenges for Sky TV in broadcasting the league.

''I think in an ideal world they'd be shared around equally,'' he said.

''But we understand the reasons why it costs a lot more for Sky to come to Dunedin to do games.

''So ... we understand the challenge and [the challenge] for getting more away games on Sky, just because of the schedule.''

He said Football New Zealand had worked hard to get more games on Sky, and there was still a possibility of getting another one or two broadcasted.

While the situation was not ideal, the club felt no resentment towards the national body.

Wright said the away games were the ones the club wanted on television the most, so its fans could watch them from home.

However, he said it was also significant to get sponsors national exposure, as well as making the games viewable for Southern's overseas fans.

Under Sky's new television licence livestreaming home games had also become a possibility.

In the past all games had been filmed by Sky.

One was broadcast live with multiple cameras, while the others were made into highlight packages.

Now just one game per round is being filmed.

That gives the hosts of the other games the option to livestream them, provided the video is of a high enough quality.

Wright hoped Southern would be in a position to do that for the second half of the season.

Meanwhile a date has still not been set for the rescheduled game against Auckland City.

Finding a date and venue had been challenging, although it would likely be in February or March.

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