The broadcasting rights for all 52 matches of the forthcoming 2023 African Cup of Nations tournament have been successfully acquired by the SABC.
Originally slated for June and July of the previous year, the tournament, set to commence next week, was postponed due to apprehensions regarding the summer weather conditions in the Ivory Coast.
The declaration, disclosed on Friday, comes in the wake of a Wednesday pronouncement by MultiChoice, where the pay-television provider revealed that its subsidiary SuperSport had been unsuccessful in obtaining the broadcasting rights for the tournament.
“Total Energies AFCON 2023 is a highly anticipated sports spectacle that will take place in Ivory Coast from 13 January 2024 until 11 February 2024 and will be only available on the SABC channels across all broadcasting platforms in South Africa,” SABC said in a statement.
“With the local PSL season taking a break for the next six (6) weeks, SABC Sport will be offering its audiences and commercial partners the live experience of all 52 matches of AFCON 2023, in which the South African national team, our own Bafana Bafana will also be participating.”
In addition, SABC Sport has also acquired the live matches to the rest of the CAF events, which includes all 150 matches of the AFCON 2025 qualifiers, all the 32 matches of CAF CHAN 2024, all matches of CAF Champions League 2023/24, all matches of CAF Confederations Cup 2023/24, all the matches of CAF Africa Women Cup of Nations 2024, all matches of CAF Women’s Champions League 2024 and all the matches of CAF Super Cup 2024. These acquisitions put football lovers and commercial partners in the prime position to experience the world’s biggest football events exclusively on SABC channels, making this great content available to all South Africans for free and with no uncompetitive platform blockages.
In its promise of making all world-class events available to all South Africans with no barrier or cost to entry, the SABC will broadcast all the AFCON 2023 matches live on SABC 1, SABC 3, SABC Sport Channel and SABC radio stations, Radio 2000, RSG, Umhlobo Wenene FM, Ukhozi FM, Lesedi FM, Motsweding FM, Thobela FM, Phalaphala FM, Munghana Lonene FM, Ikwekwezi FM, Ligwalagwala FM and TRUFM in the language of choice to audiences.
In addition, SABC Plus and sabcsport.com will offer free live streaming of all the 52 games, while also offering a free catch-up service for those that may have missed the live action. SABC Sport social pages on Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter) will offer audiences live commentary of every single unmissable moment from every single one of the 52 live matches of AFCON 2023.
The SABC’s Chief Operations Officer, Ian Plaatjes stated: “The SABC team is happy to have made all these great sports activities available to the South African public and would like to express its gratitude to the rights holders, New World Media, and all the relevant stakeholders who worked tirelessly to ensure the fruition of this process.”
