CSA renews deal with SuperSport till 2021

Cricket will remain the property of pay-television consumers in South Africa, after CSA renewed their deal with SuperSport for the next six years. The new deal will run until the end of April 2021 and includes the broadcaster's hosting rights for all home internationals matches played in this period.

Fans without access to the channel should still be able to watch the South African team's home matches because SuperSport provides the state broadcaster, SABC, with a live feed. The same does not apply when South Africa play abroad or to domestic matches, which are only available to watch on SuperSport. SuperSport will broadcast a minimum of 60% of matches in the domestic one-day cup and 20-over tournament but no live first-class cricket.

Despite that, television viewership of cricket in South Africa is growing according to sports marketing agency Repucom. In Johannesburg last week, the agency revealed that the viewing time of the average South African cricket fan has increased by 21%, helped, no doubt, by the availability of cricket to watch.

Last October, SuperSport launched a temporary 24-hour news channel which ran until the end of the World Cup and broadcast series including India's tour of Australia and the triangular competition which followed, as well as Sri Lanka's trip to New Zealand. South African pay-television users also have every match of the IPL shown live but for the first time in many years, they do not have any coverage of the series between West Indies and England. SuperSport has not acquired the rights for that series.