We pay to beam EPL soccer: SABC
‘Costly to show PSL than English games’
The SABC has confirmed that there was money involved in their “Free-to-Air” broadcast rights agreement to show live matches of the English Premier League (EPL) on Saturdays‚ spokesperson Neo Momodu said on Wednesday.
The cash-strapped public broadcaster has sub-licensed the broadcast rights for EPL live matches from the main rights holder, Kwese Sports, in a deal Momodu described as “cost-effective.”
“Yes, there will be money that will come from the SABC to Kwese for the broadcast rights but I can assure you that it is cost-effective and minimal compared to its investment into other local sporting codes‚” Momodu said.
“Generally, international content is much more cheaper to acquire than the local content‚ meaning we acquired EPL at a cost way less than what we paid for the PSL rights.”
The rights package will consist of 33 live matches‚ selected by the EPL‚ for the duration of the 2018/19. It appears that Bafana Bafana’s next official games may not be broadcast live on SABC because the public broadcaster owes money to the SA Football Association (Safa)‚ which holds the rights to the broadcast of all national teams matches.
Safa revealed that the SABC has failed to honour its financial obligations for several months and owes the football body more than R50-million.
Bafana host Libya on Saturday September 8 at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier, and Momodu said discussions with Safa to have the SABC broadcast the match are ongoing.