'Bafana TV rights worth way more than R25m'

Even with Bafana Bafana's drastic decline, which has seen them struggle to attract big crowds in recent years, the R25m Safa gets yearly from their broadcast deal with the SABC is “too little”.

This is according to sponsorship expert Steward Masela. The sponsorship guru reckons Bafana are watched by more people than the Springboks, who are the reigning world champions after lifting the Webb Ellis Cup in 2019. In 2021, then SA Rugby Union (Saru) CEO Jure Roux was quoted as saying the union's five-year TV deal with SuperSport was worth R752m.

“What Safa is getting now is way too little from what they used to get in the past. Think about it this way, football is the number one sport in the country. Whether Bafana win or lose, there are more people watching them than people watching the Springboks,'' Masela told Sowetan yesterday.

Initially, the public broadcaster was paying Safa R110m per year for the TV rights until 2019 when they decreased the amount. Masela suspects Safa sent inexperienced negotiators for the current deal, hence the sharp decline. “I think it boils down to inexperienced people. The rights of Bafana Bafana are really undervalued,” Masela said.

“It is important that rights holders like Safa get someone who is knowledgeable to help them negotiate better rights, who knows a better deal. They will get a good deal at SuperSport, but they can also get a good deal at SABC. It depends on how they negotiate it.”

Speaking at the Safa congress in Kempton Park on Sunday, Safa CEO Tebogo Motlanthe revealed the association posted a R2.9m loss for 2022, expressing the body's unhappiness at the revenue it has earned from the SABC TV deal. Motlanthe also added they were prepared to get an improved deal elsewhere, raising suspicions that the current deal with the public broadcaster won't be renewed when it expires in September.

Quizzed yesterday as to why Safa accepted the measly R25m in the first place, Motlanthe said: “It is because of legislation. There was a lot of negotiation but I’m not the person to speak about it because it happened before I took over.”

Motlanthe added that they intend to engage with the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) and government to make them understand why they are contemplating walking away from the SABC deal. 

“I think the Icasa legislation plays a big role in all of this and the SABC will use it to bargain. The NEC (National Executive Committee) resolved on that to say we need to engage Icasa, all the communities and platforms because it is not only football for example, but you also don’t see rugby on SABC and you don’t see cricket on SABC,'' Motlanthe noted.

“So, we are saying we need to stand our ground and say to government we understand that a man on the ground must have access to the national teams, but it must not be on our detrimental.” 

The Safa CEO also assured they had not engaged with SuperSport, honouring their contractual obligation with the SABC. “We have  a contract with SABC which expires in September [this year] so we can’t talk to anyone before we talk to SABC first,'' Motlanthe said.

SuperSport communications manager Clinton van der Berg said the channel does” not engage in speculation around rights or potential broadcast deals”, while SABC spokesperson Mmoni Seapolelo did not respond to a written query before deadline.