Izuchukwu OkosiSupersport was not able to secure broadcast rights for the 34th edition of the African Cup of Nations and fans are left to find the games on other pay TV stations or stream the games.
The 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d’Ivoire will kick off in Abidjan eight days from today (5 January 2024) with the attention of the world focused on the continent of Africa for the biggest sporting event every two years.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelThe AFCON 2023 will be held between 13 January and 11 February 2024.
It was pushed back for one year as the Ivorians needed more time to put their facilities in great shape.
Television viewers who are watching proceedings from the comfort of their homes or viewing points may however not be able to watch the 52 games live from their regular pay TV channel, Supersport.
This is because the management of Supersport was unable to outbid the newest entrant in the pay television industry in Africa owned by a Togolese audio-visual group, New World TV.
The handwriting had been on the wall even before the 2021 AFCON hosted by Cameroon with the Confederation of African Football (CAF) threatening to make the broadcast rights not an exclusive thing for Supersport.
In the end, though, fans were able to watch their favourite African stars like Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah, Victor Osimhen, Riyad Mahrez and Hakim Ziyech, etc after a resolution was found.
This year it is different although a late compromise might be found so that Supersport can broadcast to only Sub-Saharan Africa while New World TV takes care of the francophone nations.
The North African countries would likely watch the tournament via Qatari media giants, BeIn Sports.
Many people are of the opinion that the monopoly enjoyed by Supersport over the years in terms of broadcast rights of the AFCON, UEFA Champions League, Euro Championship, The Olympics, Copa America and the major football leagues in Europe especially in the Premier League in England must be broken.
There is a school of thought that TStv, the Nigerian owned pay TV station headquartered in Abuja could not rise to the desired level it had envisioned due to the stronghold of Multichoice (the owners of Supersport).
Multichoice (through Dstv and Gotv) has a franchise in Africa and has churned out quality services to its teeming audience.
However, the grouse against them stems from their regular increase in tariff price and reluctance to have the customers choose if they would like to subscribe for daily, weekly, or monthly bouquets.
So with the 34th edit deon of the Africa Cup of Nations beckoning, that could be a game changer albeit not much.
This is because the English Premier League, Serie A, and the La Liga would be going on during the duration of the AFCON.
a few days after the AFCON final, the round of 16 stage of the UEFA Champions League, a round of 32 in the Europa League and Conference League will start – all LIVE on Supersport.
New World TV had secured the broadcast rights of the AFCON 2023 to 2025 which CAF in December 2023, described as a “historic media rights agreement.”
Patrice Motsepe, CAF president, even described the deal as “the biggest investment by a Pan-African broadcaster in CAF’s history.”
The deal means that any TV station that intends to broadcast the tournaments would have to go through New World TV.
For Nigerians in particular, they can watch the tournament on Startimes, the pay TV owned by a Chinese company with a strong presence in Africa, especially in Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana.
Startimes were able to find a way to strike a broadcast agreement with New World TV as they are not considered to be a direct rival of the new guys in business reportedly financed by a Paris-based team headed by Kolani Nimonka, the company’s general manager.
New World TV acquired the rights to broadcast the Qatar 2022 World Cup in Francophone countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The company also secured the 2023 Women’s World Cup and the 2024/2028 European Championships rights.
Whoever eventually becomes the source for African football fans to see their heroes in action is not the issue, what matters is accessibility and affordability for the end users.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
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