The South African cricket team’s matches in Bangladesh will not be broadcast to fans in South Africa because neither the SABC nor SuperSport were able to reach agreement with the host broadcaster in Bangladesh on the rights for the tour.
”It is unfortunate, but we were unable to reach agreement with the rights holders,”, said the head of SABC Topsport, Mvuso Mbebe. SuperSport’s director of Enterprises and Production Imtiaz Patel said: ”We negotiated with the rights holder but were unable to solve issues around the rights.
We are disappointed that we cannot bring the matches to the screens of South Africans as we have always tried to ensure that South Africans can watch their team wherever they are.”
International broadcast rights are owned by the host country’s Cricket Board, which then sells them to a host broadcaster which in turn receives bids from broadcasters in other countries for the right to broadcast the games in their own countries. The UCBSA does not hold or control the rights to any cricket which is played outside South Africa.
”It is unfortunate that South Africans will be unable to watch or listen to the matches in Bangladesh involving our team. Both SuperSport and the SABC have always tried to keep South African fans in touch with their team and we are disappointed, but understand that they are unable to do so on this tour,” said UCBSA CEO Gerald Majola. ”Unfortunately, this is a situation which is beyond our control and we will endeavour, via the media, to keep the public updated daily on our team’s progress,” he added. – Sapa