Supersport not showing CHAN 2020 CHAN 2021
DSTV, GOtv, and Multichoice have seemingly ignored the ongoing African Nations Championship taking place in Cameroon. The Africa based group of sports tv channels, Supersport is completely ghosted concerning this CHAN 2020 taking place in 2021.
I’m sure many of us, including me, have been wondering why media giants like Supersport won’t purchase rights to show these matches, a competition that concerns and involves the whole of Africa.
Over the past days, I’ve been walking around comments sections of Supersports posts and asking the question “Why is Supersport not showing the CHAN”. I didn’t get an answer, and today, just when I was about to drop a post bashing Supersports, I decided to do a little research to get the facts right, and then I uncovered what may have transpired in the background.
Actually, it turns out that in November of 2019, CAF in a statement revealed that they have terminated their agency agreement/contract with the French media group, Lagardere. Supersports initially bought their rights from Lagardere which is no longer valid with the termination of the contract.
It was actually a huge deal of more than $1 billion in which Lagardere was the exclusive agent for the sale and marketing and media rights of all CAF content.
Details of why the contract was terminated may not be important as of now, but to guide your understanding, it was following two court judgments which ruled that the contract breached competition rules as Lagardere was appointed as CAF’s exclusive agent for a 20 years period without any open tender. French man kinda stuff!!
Long story short, Supersport could only approach CAF by themselves for these image rights, but there’s no sign of that online. Apparently, they didn’t make the move. For this reason, they’ve since not broadcasted the 2019 U23 AFCON, AFCON 2021 Qualifiers, and now the CHAN 2020.
Worth mentioning that China’s StarTimes and Canal Plus have the rights to broadcast the ongoing Total CHAN tournament. Including CRTV, I think those are 3 channels that could very well supply Sub Saharan Africa.
Many of us have been complaining and bashing Supersports that they do not care about the CHAN this year because their major subscription countries like Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa are not participating. But from the above, this is false. I just pray that they could look for a way to secure that deal before the CAN next January.
Thank you.
Fabz Chi, for www.kesamagazine.com
#KESAmag
