by Thinus Ferreira
Just days after MultiChoice and SuperSport publicly said that not airing and not having the TV rights to the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) football tournament "wouldn't have any material impact on our business" due to the structural nature and economics of the pay-TV business", MultiChoice and SuperSport on Wednesday night suddenly confirmed that it had now paid millions to secure pay-TV rights to 2023 Afcon.
The stunning reversal - first announcing that it doesn't have the 2023 Afcon and then that it does - signals how the pan-African pay-TV operator based in Randburg in South Africa played hardball with the Togolese pay-TV upstart New World TV which MultiChoice and its SuperSport brand were forced to sublicence the rights from.
If "due to the structural nature and economics of the pay-TV business, we do not expect it to have any material impact on our business," as Sibusiso Mjikeliso, SuperSport communications manager, said four days ago publicly, why did MultiChoice and SuperSport then bother to spend millions of rand to get the 2023 Afcon rights two days before kick-off of the tournament on 13 January in Ivory Coast?
Late Wednesday night MultiChoice and SuperSport in a statement announced a U-turn, coming a week after saying SuperSport won't have 2023 Afcon coverage, now noting that "SuperSport
will broadcast all 52 matches of the Africa Cup of Nations
Cote d'Ivoire 2023 live after MultiChoice secured the rights to
broadcast the continent's showpiece tournament".
In the statement, MultiChoice says it had suddenly "reached a commercially viable agreement with rightsholders, New
World TV (NWTV) to broadcast the 34th edition of Africa's premier men's
football competition taking place in Ivory Coast".
"We are delighted to be able to showcase
the best of African football live to our viewers," says Rendani Ramovha.
Nimonka Kolani, New World TV managing director, in the prepared statement, says "By securing the rights to CAN 2023 under the leadership of Dr Patrice Motsepe, SuperSport and NWTV prove that nothing is more important than
the happiness of Africans who wish to follow the exploits of their favourite
team during the biggest football competition in Africa".
MultiChoice and SuperSport are last in announcing it will show the 2023 Afcon, following after the South African public broadcaster which will have free-to-air coverage on its various SABC TV channels, as well as China's StarTimes, trading as StarSat in South Africa, which also announced last week that it had acquired the pay-TV rights for sub-Saharan Africa.
