PFJL finance chair sees strong commercial upside in JPL hydration breaks

Peter Higgins, who chairs the finance committee at Professional Football Jamaica Limited (PFJL), says the commercial prospects of hydration breaks in the Jamaica Premier League (JPL) appear highly promising, even though the organisation has yet to study those opportunities in detail.

Any move to introduce the breaks, he stressed, would first need the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) to give its blessing. Until that clearance comes, PFJL will not press ahead with a full commercial review.

“Really, we have not looked at it because it is a regulatory issue. It has to come from the JFF. It hasn’t been raised (at PFJL meetings), and the truth is we can’t make a decision with regard to hydration breaks.”

“The PFJL’s responsibility is to commercialise the league. The JFF still has responsibility for overall organisation and operations and, in terms of breaks that may come in, it still has to be them and no discussion has been had so far,” Higgins said.

Even so, he argued that three-minute pauses mid-match could open substantial new income streams. League and club sponsors, he said, would gain extra visibility for their brands on a high-value stage, with clear advantages for both the partners and the competition itself.

With the JPL returning to free-to-air television, he added, broadcasters would be well placed to package and sell that inventory. Two extra stoppages would create fresh advertising slots, each lasting three minutes, raising the question of how many 30-second spots could fit — roughly a dozen across both intervals, or about six per break — exposure seldom available in football.

The breaks’ original purpose, he noted, is to give players a cooling period in extreme heat. Despite resistance in some quarters, he remains convinced they would serve the JPL well.

“The Europeans are complaining that they don’t like it and I don’t think they use the hydration break in UEFA, for example. However, for one minute that’s two ads and, if it is two minutes, that’s four ads. So, for each break, you can run about six ads in that space, and those are premium times, so those ads would cost more,” he pointed.

“If this amount of ads is shown through the year, then we could get some more revenue coming into the league, and the broadcasters would also get more money coming into them as well.”

Harbour View general manager Clyde Jureidini likewise views the idea as a sound commercial step that could draw more small and medium-sized sponsors into the sport.

“It’s a win-win situation for me and I think it could be experimented and implemented. It provided a remarkable amount of revenue at the World Cup.

“If you look at the figures and the cost of a commercial during the break,, it opens the window that a lot can be done. It could be done, not for your main sponsors but for other sponsors who want to come in a different area ... on a spot basis rather than on a continuous title sponsor or main sponsor basis. So it opens opportunities and time will tell in what creative ways it will be done,” Jureidini said.

He acknowledged that Jamaica’s market is far smaller than the World Cup’s, yet still sees meaningful earnings potential through this route for the league.

“We will see. We might have to expand into the diaspora or new markets, but those are some of the challenges we will have to look to take on.

“We will have to open our minds to the opportunities but the potential is there. It’s for us to exploit it and to make the most of it.”