 Our starting with football on the Sportsmax zone, the Jamaica Premier League, the top tier of football in regular country is less than two weeks from starting the 2023-24 season and a large event commemorating the occasion was held at the CEO of professional football, Jamaica Limited, Owen Hill, all the way known as Braddy, focused on the importance of bringing the product to the JPL as wide an audience, as wide as audience as possible and showed how influential Sportsmax television was to facilitating a huge transfer last season. Several success metrics were checked on the scorecard and some of these include 10 successful player transfers that were completed throughout the entire year or most recent Trivantes Stewart from Mount Pleasant again. He is playing in the Italian Syria so his last game was the Jamaica Premier League final and his next game was the Italian Syria. That's massive. So the player that I mentioned earlier Trivantes Stewart, he was signed from the champions Mount Pleasant and not one time did a scout actually really come to Jamaica and look at this player. A lot of the clips a lot of what was done was through the broadcast that we had. So again it's massive. Having these games being broadcasted at venues that are suitable and the players get an opportunity they will start earning bigger bucks. Owen Hill they're a CEO of the Jamaica Professional Football Association. Now the CEO of Sportsmax Nicholas Matthews shared the same sentiments. Sportsmax has been with football Premier League in Jamaica for eight years and accounting. We have been investing annually close to 60 million in the football production broadcast sponsorship and distribution for this league. And the key to this is we want to make this league be international. It's no longer a local league it's an international league and over the last eight years over the last eight years we have been distributing Jamaica Premier League across 26 countries across the Caribbean in the United States in countries right across the world and the PFJ also has the opportunity to get broadcast rights on this product. And this is a big deal. Yeah last night a pretty vibes a function at the Rear Nevew offices Rear Nevew the new title sponsors of the Jamaica Premier League Mariah and there were many players at the launch and they looked ready and rearing to go. Yeah and one of the things about the Jamaica Premier League you know I've been here for some time and it's one of the product on Sportsmax so that I really look forward to and I really enjoy it's also a pleasure to have Rear Nevew join as title sponsors because I was listening to the broadcast the live stream that we had and they were you know very clear that it's not the first time lands that they've been associated with the JPL so it's good to have them back because Rear Nevew white rum tastes so good and the JPL product is such a good product so I think it's a perfect blend so that's a good thing too. I heard Nicholas Matthews our CEO speak about making the JPL not just for Jamaica but international and that's one of the things I'm very very proud about our team here because you know we had the stats just now to back it up from Owen Hill when you watch the JPL and the standard of coverage that is presented it doesn't look like a local product it looks international and I'm happy that you know the athletes can benefit from this and get the opportunities like Trevanti Stewart and I'm hoping more people lands can use the work that we do to of course you know better themselves. Yeah and the fact is outside of the fact that it is you know the the premier pro league in in Karakum at the moment it embraces so many players from outside of Jamaica as well because there are players in the Jamaica Premier League playing from St Lucia there are players from Ghana players from Suriname and several of them champions as well. There is a St Lucia Moxley who played with Cavalier when they won and he was on the Mount Pleasant Championship winning team as well so he's already in three years of playing JPL football been a champion twice with two different teams and it is no doubt that there are a lot of players who are in the current league that were were attracted to the league by watching the Jamaica Premier League on Sportsmax a few of them have said so themselves that they stood in their countries in the eastern Caribbean watched a lot of the Jamaica Premier League especially the Monday night games and they just wanted to be involved and some of them initiated contact with local club officials and got themselves signed up so you know I'm a Caribbean person so I really love the fact that so many Caribbean players have come to Jamaica to be a part of the Jamaica Premier League and it's even more satisfying that some of them have been champions as well. Yes and I think it speaks to the quality of the product because nobody leaves their good good country and their good good home to go play football in another country if the quality is not top notch and if they're not seeing the benefits I'm looking forward to season personally to see how Limehall and Treasure Beach fairs in the JPL competition because they are the newly promoted teams Lance and we won't have to wait too long because October 22 I wrote it down it's next Sunday and I'll be looking forward to see how those teams keep up with the pace of the JPL because it's a fast-paced competition and I think you know we don't judge the teams difficult from the beginning of the season but the moment it hits mid-season it's time to pick up the pace. Yeah and in recent years a few of the teams promoted to the top flight have struggled to measure up but there are clear indications that Treasure Beach and Limehall have enhanced their squads and are trying to make sure that they make a mark and would not you know find you know find it difficult to tackle some of the big teams so I'm looking forward to seeing how well they do and I get the feeling that they're going to be fairly competitive but we did see you know in recent years where some of the teams that went up just found it difficult to cope. Yeah do you have a team for this season or are we giving it some time? Well I like Mount Pleasant and I was happy that they won last time and at the moment I see no reason to depart from Mount Pleasant. Let me let me say quickly too that one of the points that the master of ceremonies meant went made last night Oral Tracy was a good one because he spoke to the football as a domestic product serving not just the purpose of being attractive to the fans who love football but it has brought people together. You know a few decades ago the politically volatile parts of Kingston would have been so would have been so hyped up with with anger and so on between like Tivoli Gardens and Arnett Gardens that certain things would not happen and he made the point last night that Tivoli Gardens is now being coached by Jerome Wake who is from Arnett Gardens and he's making the point that in the 70s and 80s that would never happen and he's right because of how politically angry and distanced those two communities are you would never find some something like that happening and the fact that it has happened now and it has happened so seamlessly tells you that football has served a good purpose in Kingston and St Andrews. Yeah one of its many good purposes because I love that and I also had the opportunity to attend a lot of JPL matches and Lance what I think is it also brings communities families and friends together because attending one of the match I there's this soup chicken soup vendor that a lot of people go you know to partake it's it's like a family affair apart from the football taking place you know people use it to of course spend their free time and I think sometimes you know we overlook all these other benefits that comes with the sport we only think that maybe only the players benefit because they get scholarships but it's a good outlet for youngsters as well to see where they can be one day because think about a little child going with his mother just to support somebody and then one day seeing himself playing in a JPL match so I think it has so many positives so many advantages and I look forward to personally attending more JPL matches this season that's my goal. Another good thing that we've seen in the Jamaica Premier League and I think Cavalier would have to take a lot of credit for that is the advent of more schoolboy players more teenagers playing in the Jamaica Premier League and Cavalier has best presented that as as an approach you know there were times they were playing last year where five or six of their starting players were were teenagers and that would never happen in previous years of Jamaica Premier League football so Rudolf Speed and his Cavalier club would take a lot of credit for leading the way in that in that development because there are there are some other clubs that that do it but Cavalier would have to take the credit for being the pace setters as far as that is concerned and the fact that he has not only done that but Cavalier has done that with success because there were champions a couple of seasons ago semi-finalists after that so they've made the playoffs with that project of young players developing them and I think Cavalier has to take a lot of credit for that as well because that's that's a good sign for football in Jamaica. One of the things that we have said over the years is that because football in the Caribbean is so underdeveloped we quite often miss the fact that 16 17 18 year olds if you're good enough and if you have the scope to get to the highest levels of football at those ages you should be playing high quality football you should be playing at the level that would show that you are ready for the higher level of football and I think that's what we are seeing now where a lot of 17 18 19 year olds are flourishing in the Jamaica Premier League and that's a good sign and it's also an inspiration to some of the other younger players I know a lot of them are still playing schoolboy football so they won't play in the Premier League until January when the schoolboy football season ends and because of the pro nature of the league they have to still play as amateurs but it is a good development sign that young players really young players 16 17 18 year olds are in the Premier League and not only playing but showing comfort at that level and scoring many goals as well. Yeah and with that being said the amount of years that you've been around the JPL and of course on commentary would you say lands that the quality of the Jamaica Premier League has improved. It's that's a very difficult question. I've heard that debate over and over and because I remember the kind of high quality players that I would have seen in the 80s and 90s it's hard for me to immediately say that the quality is better now than then. Yes. What I would say though is that the professionalism and the coaching strategies being used in the current league would be superior to what had existed back in the 80s and 90s and I guess you could say that translates to improvement but I am very careful in making those statements because I can tell you there were some players in the 80s and 90s. You could go back to the 70s if they had the opportunities that some of these players now have and the field conditions as well because the most in most instances the fields are a lot better now than they were 20 30 years ago and I can think of some players who I saw in the 80s and 90s if they had the opportunities and the facilities and the the improved field conditions that these players had I think as many of them would be far advanced from where some of these players are now. Yeah it's so unfortunate that we were not around then to see with video footage and for these are players to benefit of course from that coverage because as you said for all you know they would have been suiting up for the big big clubs like the Manchester City and what not. Yeah that's that's for sure. We go to break we still have a lot more football to come and cricket and much more on the sports max zone on this Wednesday back in a moment.