DStv Premium smashes global sports streaming rivals

Subscribing to a combination of legal international sports streaming services that could provide a similar selection of sports as DStv Premium will cost over double the South African service’s price.

In addition, some of these international services will require complex workarounds that might carry additional costs.

These include signing up for foreign-based payment methods and a virtual private network (VPN) service, and in some cases, having a cellphone number in a foreign country where the service officially operates.

South Africans have complained about the price of MultiChoice’s top-end DStv Premium product for many years.

At R799 for the most affordable streaming-only package, DStv Premium is substantially more expensive than services like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV+.

In fact, the monthly subscriptions for all those streaming services work out to around R500.

In addition, users could add MultiChoice’s Showmax streaming service for another R99, which provides access to many of the movies and TV shows available on Premium’s entertainment channels.

However, although DStv Premium boasts over 135 channels with a wide range of content, many customers find its real value lies in just a handful of live sports channels that are not available on any other DStv packages.

MultiChoice invests significant money in acquiring the broadcasting rights to the most popular sports and their most keenly -followed matches and tournaments.

As a result, it can offer 20 SuperSport channels as well as two ESPN channels that offer most if not all the content that a typical South African sports fan wants to watch.

There are seven Premium-exclusive channels offering coverage of high-profile events in sports other than football.

These include SuperSport’s Grandstand, Rugby, Cricket, Motorsport, Golf, and Tennis channels.

DStv Premium’s sports offering

MyBroadband calculated the cost of subscribing to eight international streaming services that could provide similar sports coverage to DStv Premium.

We found that no international streaming service offers the range of South African-relevant sports available on DStv Premium.

The service that comes closest to DStv Premium in terms of sports variety and relevance to South African audiences is Sky Sport’s Now TV, based in the UK.

It boasts 12 live sports channels, which include coverage of many of the best cricket, football, Formula 1, golf, rugby, and tennis events.

This subscription costs £26 (R617) for the first six months and then increases to £34.99 (R830) — already more than the price of DStv Premium.

The best value-for-money international services are Disney+ Hotstar Super and SonyLIV Premium, both of which operate in India.

However, they are also difficult to subscribe to or access from outside India.

For example, Disney+ Hotstar requires an Indian cellphone number, address, and payment method, on top of the user needing to be connected to an India-based VPN server.

While there are ways around this, it is risky and technically against the platform’s terms of service. Broadcasters also consider this a form of copyright infringement or piracy.

Even if you combine all eight of these international services, which will cost roughly R1,811 per month at current change rates, many smaller South African-specific matches and tournaments will not be available.

On the flip side, you will get more content from other sports that might appeal to your tastes.

The table below provides a breakdown of the eight-piece international streaming service bundle that could provide a similar selection of sports as DStv Premium.