Earlier in the week, it was unclear whether the South African Broadcasting Commission (SABC) would be able to broadcast the Rugby World Cup 2023 games as SuperSport owns the rights to the tournament. According to reports, the SABC needed to pay an amount in the region of $2 million (R37.79 million) to televise the Springbok games on their platforms.

BACK AND FORTH

SABC has been in constant engagements with Multichoice and has been trying to conclude an agreement. After reaching middle ground, the SABC was able to secure the rights to broadcast the tournament, and they will be showing a total of 16 games, leaving over 3 million South African households unable to watch the tournament.

A MIDDLE GROUND

The SABC has confirmed in a statement that the Corporation has in principle agreed with MultiChoice to broadcast all the Springbok games. "A total of 16 games will be broadcast on the SABC channels. This agreement will, unfortunately, exclude the OVHD (eMedia) platform because of the restrictive conditions that MultiChoice is placing on the sub-licensing agreement for the Free-to-Air rights for the RWC 2023," the statement reads. "This condition cuts off approximately 3.2 million South African households. The SABC hopes that in the interest of nation building and social cohesion, MultiChoice will remove this restrictive condition to enable all South Africans to get behind the Boks," the statement reads. It goes on to say, "The SABC regrets this irrational decision by MultiChoice, especially in light of Minister Zizi Kodwa's emphasis that, "rugby plays a critical role in nation building and social cohesion". The SABC hopes that in the interest of nation-building and social cohesion, MultiChoice will remove this restrictive condition to enable all South Africans to get behind the Boks.

ILLEGAL STREAMING

South Africans can stream all rugby matches from the World Cup live for free using a virtual private network (VPN) service, but SuperSport owner MultiChoice has warned that streaming the Rugby World doing so would be considered illegal. MultiChoice has bought the exclusive broadcasting and streaming rights for the 2023 RWC, which starts today. All of the live matches would be broadcast on SuperSport channels only available on the DStv Premium package, which starts from R799 per month for a streaming-only option.