Football Conference To Become National League

The English Football Conference is to be renamed as the Vanarama National League, while the competition has also renewed its broadcast deal with BT Sport for a further three years.

The Football Conference, comprising the fifth and sixth tiers of English football, confirmed the new initiative in a statement, which will see the Vanarama National League officially come into effect on 6th June with a new logo.

The two divisions of the sixth tier, currently the Conference North and South, will be renamed the Vanarama National League North and the Vanarama National League South.

Incoming National League chairman Brian Barwick said the new branding would “offer much to our existing partners whilst opening up new opportunities”.

As part of the latest broadcast deal, BT Sport will extend the live coverage of matches and feature a regular weekly highlights show to be broadcast on a Sunday evening.

In addition, the Vanarama National League is to launch NLTV, a new broadcasting company which will have a fully dedicated broadcast channel to focus on the 68 member clubs, and the competition will also create the new NLTV Broadcasting Academy.

The Broadcasting Academy is a joint venture between BT Sport and Vanarama which will see 48 media students from around the country given the opportunity to be trained in filming techniques and then embedded with clubs, provided with BT professional broadcasting equipment and taught by BT Sport technical staff how to film, edit and stream media to a new production hub.

Tony Kleanthous, a Football Conference board director responsible for broadcasting, said: “The NLTV daily show will include short clips, podcasts and updates from clubs around the country and our new digital platform will also feature highlights from every game every week so you never need miss the action.”

David Bernstein, chairman of Vanarama, added: “I am particularly excited by this announcement and the Broadcasting Academy is an educational project to which Vanarama is proud to extend its support.

“We have demonstrated our commitment to football and their communities up and down the country and want to continue working with an organisation whose vibrancy and ethos matches our own.”