New Zealand Football has confirmed plans to livestream at least one game per week of the National League, Football Foundation Kate Sheppard Cup or Chatham Cup, until the end of the regional football season in September. 

A minimum of 25 games will be livestreamed for free on New Zealand Football’s YouTube channel, showing all the best action from the Northern League, Central League and soon to be launched Southern League, all part of the new National League competition, as well as later stages of the two domestic cups. 

Coverage starts this Friday night as Western Springs host Manukau United in the Northern League. The game will be streamed live from 7:15pm, with commentary from Sky Sport’s Gordon Glen Watson, on New Zealand Football’s YouTube channel. 

The final seasons of both the ISPS Handa Men’s and Women’s Premierships saw all games broadcast by Sky Sport for the first time, with 75% available for free on the Sky Sport Next YouTube channel. Digital views of the competitions in the 2020/21 seasons were 20x higher than for the 2019/20 campaigns as a result of increased availability of games. 

The 2021 National League Championship, which follows the regional competitions, will continue the trend with all games across the men’s and women’s competitions made available either via broadcast on Sky Sport or livestreamed for free. 

“We want to make the game as accessible as possible to fans around Aotearoa and increasingly the world” says Andrew Pragnell, CEO of New Zealand Football. 

“The feedback we have had from the football community about making games available to stream live has been really positive. We are pleased to be able to increase the breadth of our coverage to include regional and national competitions.”

Keep up to date with the latest games being broadcast by subscribing to the channel at youtube.com/NewZealandFootball


Article added: Thursday 13 May 2021