The South African Football Association (SAFA) officially announced and confirmed a new deal involving broadcasting rights with Siyaya TV that will allow the football governing body of Siyaya TV to transmit South African national team matches. The deal is reported to be worth $93.6 million.
This deal will allow Siyaya TV to have the exclusive rights for them to broadcast all of the matches of the South African team.
This will allow the African side on having more exposure with their respective matches whether it might only be friendly encounters or important international games. The deal also includes written terms which state that the South African Football Association will help and assist Siyaya TV in obtaining licensing rights of events from FIFA, UEFA and CAF.
The new deal with Siyaya TV will remove the South Africa Broadcasting Corporation from the rights that they own which was going to run up until April of 2015. These rights allowed the football entity on being able to transmit matches of the national football team. The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) only granted SAFA $4,206,825.94 each year which is astronomically lower comparing it to the new contract with Siyaya TV which is $93.6 million.
Some years ago the rights were being undervalued due to government policy which required national team games to be transmitted by a public broadcaster as the national teams were termed ‘national assets’. The new deal will see the SABC needing to reach a secondary agreement with Siyaya TV to transmit any Bafana Bafana games.
The new contract is expected to take effect starting from May of 2015.