Bafana Bafana in R1-billion pay-TV deal: reports

The South African Football Association (Safa) has sold the live broadcast rights of South Africa’s soccer team, Bafana Bafana, to new pay TV license holder Siyaya TV, the Sunday Times and City Press reported.

This includes the rights to the matches of the national football team, the junior teams, and the national women’s team. It also includes the ABC Motsepe League, Safa TV, and the annual Safa awards.

In addition to the TV and radio broadcast rights, the deal includes mobile and Internet streaming rights, the Sunday Times reported.

Siyaya TV was among the five companies that received provisional pay-TV licenses from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) earlier this year.

According to the City Press, the deal will see Safa receive R175-million per year for six years. This is a significant increase over the roughly R17-million per year it was getting from the SABC and the R25-million per year from SuperSport.

In return for the large fee, Safa will help the consortium secure more events from Fifa, the Confederation of African Football and the Union of European Football Associations.

This means that the the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) — the public broadcaster — will lose the rights to broadcast Bafana Bafana’s matches live from 1 May 2015.

The Sunday Times reported that “a source close to the negotiations” told them that it is likely that Siyaya would let the SABC and e.tv show the matches once the final whistle had blown.

According to the City Press, Siyaya TV expects to launch in June 2015.

It also reported that Siyaya said in its submission to Icasa for its license that it plans to charge a monthly subscription of R70 per month.

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