Showmax Pro, Multichoice’s sports streaming subsidiary, has achieved a 111% increase in subscribers in 2022 according to the latest annual report of the firm. The South African company explains that this growth began in October 2022 when the platform announced the streaming of the entire World Cup as well as price reductions for the occasion. Sports broadcasting rights, especially football, have always been a crucial asset for broadcasters in Africa. Until recently the rights allocation was quite stable with three main players in the region. The French Canal+ and the South African Multichoice both used to broadcast international men’s sports competitions; the former in French-speaking countries, the latter in the rest of Africa. The Chinese Startimes has been combining the broadcasting of international competitions with local championships for years. However, the last World Cup materially modified the picture, as the Togolese television channel New World TV obtained the broadcasting rights in French-speaking countries, previously broadcasted by Canal+. Besides the World Cup, several major international competitions are among the most proposed contents such as the English Premier League, the Football World Cup or the Africa Cup of Nations. Overall, football remains the most widely broadcasted sport in Sub-Saharan Africa, whether it be national team matches or international championships. Other men’s sports are also covered, like basketball or rugby, in general for global events such as the rugby World Cup or the NBA championship. Nevertheless, broadcasters tend offer more and more local competitions to appeal to the public. For instance, in 2020, while Multichoice acquired the broadcasting rights for the Ethiopian league, StarTimes secured the Kenyan championship for seven years and at the price of USD 1 million per year. Local competitions have been a differentiation factor for Startimes for years, as the company also holds the rights to broadcast the Senegalese Ligue 1 over 10 seasons acquired for USD 11 million in 2018. Unlike Canal+ which incorporated sports channels into its various TV packages based on content amount and price rather than genres, Multichoice and StarTimes decided to devote specific offers to sports content. The former dedicates an entire OTT platform to its sports offering, Showmax Pro, while the latter has created sports add-ons to its DTT Classic package (SportsPlus) and its DTT Basic package (SportsPlay) in various countries such as Ghana, Kenya or Nigeria. Football viewership is traditionally driven by television, present in many African households and enabling live, shared viewing experiences. Nonetheless, OTT platforms could have the potential to become powerful distribution channels in Sub-Saharan Africa as they try to offer more easy-to-use mobile applications and affordable subscriptions with data packages. However, the stranglehold of these three operators is disturbed by the emergence of local actors determined to gain...
