Multichoice will not be broadcasting the Afcon tournament
The reason why SABC acquired the broadcast rights for the Africa Cup of Nations ahead of SuperSport has been revealed.
Ahead of the 2023 AFCON tournament in Ivory Coast, Multichoice announced a week ago that they will not be broadcasting the games after they could not reach an agreement for the rights.
In contrast, SABC managed to secure the rights to broadcast all 52 AFCON matches on it’s TV channels and digital platforms, after announcing the deal a few days ago.
The state broadcaster had a sub-licensing agreement with rights holders New World TV (NWTV), who holds the media rights to all CAF competitions until 2025.
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What made the difference in SABC acquiring the rights ahead of Multichoice is that NWTV unbundled the rights to free-to-air TV and pay-TV services, so the two South African broadcasting companies were not bidding for the same rights.
Multichoice could not come to an agreement with the Togo-based satellite TV network for the pay-television rights and SABC could negotiate separately for free-to-air rights with the same company.
“It always helps when you have the willing buyer and willing seller, so the rights owner obviously wanted to sell the rights to us, so it made it easier in having the discussions with them, it was a matter of aligning on the price, which we were able to do some time back already,” SABC COO Ian Plaatjies said on Radio 2000’s Game On.
“We needed to make sure we get all the necessary people line-up, that would be advertising on our platform and once we secured a sufficient number of sponsors to cover the costs of the rights, we were able to conclude the deal.
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“Yes, most definitely (the broadcasting rights were separated), which is why it made the negotiations so much easier, it was reserved for free-to-air rights and obviously there is pay television rights which Multichoice would have negotiated separately and they haven’t reached an agreement on that and hence nobody is cut out, everybody has a fair chance of acquiring the rights and we were able to do that,” he added.
Pay-television operator StarTimes also clinched the deal with NWTV to broadcast all 52 Afcon matches to their sub-Saharan subscribers ahead of competitor DStv, which is run by Multichoice.
