At the end of each month, there is an orange flashing light on my decoder signaling that I have a message (apologies if this doesn’t sound familiar to those of you who are wealthy enough to afford the Explora). I navigate my way to the message which reminds me to “Pay your monthly subscription or you will incur a reconnection penalty fee. Thank you, and have a nice day, bitch.” or something to that effect.
I then have to whip out my credit card (which is in the negative) and pay for my DSTV subscription. I don’t do this because I love watching SA Idols on Mnet (I actually hate that show), Africa’s Wildest on NatGEO Wild (I think animals are stupid), or Uyajola 99 on Moja Love (I have a problem with people being exposed for cheating like there is something wrong with it). I do it because of Supersport.
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Many people have defected from DSTV (3% of its premium subscribers over the last year) and have moved on to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and PornHub. The only reason DSTV is still relevant is because of sports on Supersport. If they, however, can’t deliver on that then we have a problem.
South African football fans won’t be happy to hear that Supersport will not be televising Bafana Bafana’s opening 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifier against Ghana in Accra.
According to Business Live SuperSport previously acquired the broadcast rights from Lagardère Sport. But after the Confederation of African Football (CAF) terminated its agency agreement with the French broadcast company a few days ago‚ the pay channel was caught with your pants down.
The Citizen’s Phakaaathi has learned, however, that CAF have already agreed a deal with pay-tv network beIN Sports to show the games, after they had also initially pulled out over the collapse of the Lagardère Sport deal, and are speaking to SuperSport as well.
Supersport owe the game to Bafana Bafana fans who pay their (or the bank’s) hard-earned money to watch sports on their platform.
“We are in a difficult position where we cannot broadcast the CAF games when we don’t have a firm contractual arrangement in place,” said Joe Heshu‚ MultiChoice group executive for corporate affairs.
We are honestly not interested in your excuses. DSTV is the only broadcaster of live sports in the country. It’s a monopoly and the issue becomes apparent in instances like these.