The Premier Soccer League (PSL) on Thursday announced that it had agreed to a deal with satellite-TV broadcaster SuperSport, which will pay a reported R300-million a year over the next five years for the rights to broadcast PSL matches.
And all hell broke loose.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), which believes it is its divine right to broadcast local soccer at whatever price it chooses to pay the supplier, has thrown its toys out of the cot, claiming the ”so-called” agreement cannot be valid as its dispute with the PSL — in which it claims it should be the only company with which the PSL negotiates — is still under arbitration.
Even the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), never shy to try to steal the limelight, has labelled this as an affront to masses, saying matches will be broadcast only ”to a small elite of rich TV viewers, while depriving millions of the working class and the poor the opportunity to watch their favourite sport”. It is a sentiment that is backed by the SABC.
But to be perfectly honest, that is an ill-informed view and essentially a load of crap. The deal that was negotiated after companies were asked to tender for the broadcasting rights — only SuperSport, e.tv and Telkom did so; the SABC did not even bother — names SuperSport as the broadcast partner.
SuperSport said, when announcing the deal, that it had committed to negotiating with one of the terrestrial channels (SABC or e.tv) to sell on those rights so that PSL football will be available on free-to-air TV.
OK, so the SABC may have to pay a little bit more than before for the right to show the matches, but for nine years it has had an absolute monopoly in this regard, paying a virtual pittance and doing a staggeringly bad job at bringing PSL football into our homes.
And this is one of the reasons why the PSL was keen to speak to other bidders this time round. It is a brand to be proud of and one that is growing in stature. The PSL therefore wants its brand portrayed to the public in the best possible light, and has felt for a while that the SABC’s amateurish efforts at broadcasting matches and its laughable soccer magazine programmes have not being doing the product justice.
SABC chief executive Dali Mpofu, a man of either staggering arrogance or childlike naivety, talks of soccer being the game of the people, and therefore the public broadcaster should be the only rights holder to it.
But what he doesn’t recognise — and will never admit — is the pathetic way in which his media organisation has handled its coverage. I speak to a broad range of local football fans on a regular basis through my job, and the one reoccurring theme put to me time and again is dissatisfaction with the SABC, which, let’s face it, has been resting on its laurels, expecting to be handed local soccer on a plate.
And anyway, what if SuperSport gets the cream of the matches to broadcast and the SABC the rest? Maybe that will force fans into doing something many have been resisting for years: going to the stadium and watching the game live.
That is what happened in Britain when satellite broadcaster BSkyB won the right to show Premiership football in 1992. Soccer is very much the game of the masses in Britain, too, and there was a public outcry then as well. Just a few matches were shown live each weekend, all on pay TV, but there was a rise in attendances at grounds and this trickled down the divisions. If a Manchester United supporter could not get in to Old Trafford to see the Red Devils, he would support his lower-division local team, Oldham Athletic, Chester City or the likes.
What the SABC and Cosatu need to understand is that we live in a free-market society where companies are allowed to do business in any manner they choose, as long as they do not break the law. Tell me, please, what law the PSL has broken by choosing to get the best deal possible to bring money into our football (which, we hope, will be filtered down the clubs and into youth development)?
That can only be good for South African soccer.
Nick Said is editor of On Target, a custom publishing division of Kick Off magazine