By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and pay channel Supersport signed the sub-licensing agreement which will allow all South Africans to watch the Cricket World Cup.
The public broadcaster said the deal would allow it to fulfil its mandate of broadcasting sports of national interest as well as ensuring that all cricket fans enjoyed the spectacle.
The SABC will broadcast all nine confirmed matches to be played by the Proteas team, as well as a semi-final, final and closing ceremony.
The first match of the tournament was already played between England and New Zealand on Thursday, 5 October 2023.
The Proteas will start their World Cup campaign against Sri Lanka at 10:30 on Saturday, 7 October 2023.
However, SABC said Multichoice had restricted the Cricket World Cup 2023 broadcast on the OVHD (eMedia Platform).
“The SABC has formally lodged a complaint with the Competition Commission regarding this behaviour of Multichoice.
“To mitigate the block out of the cricket on OVHD, the SABC has approached eMedia to jointly acquire the Cricket World Cup 2023 rights from MultiChoice to ensure all eMedia OVHD customers are able to view these games. Unfortunately, eMedia has not agreed to this,” the SABC said.
Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Zizi Kodwa has welcomed the sub-licensing deal between the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and Multichoice (Supersport) to broadcast the tournament.
“We welcome the commitment by the SABC and Supersport to sign the sub-licensing agreement which will allow all South Africans to watch the Cricket World Cup and our very own Proteas men’s cricket team.
“The agreement may not be the best commercially for both parties, but I appreciate that in the national interest they have found a win-win solution. Once more, I call for a permanent solution on the matter of sports broadcast rights which will allow all South Africans to watch sport of national interest,” Kodwa said.