Pay-TV firm StarTimes Media has for the first time secured rights to air the FIFA World Cup, giving it a fighting chance against MultiChoice’s SuperSport which has for years exclusively aired the popular football tournament.
StarTimes will now air all 64 matches, which are taking place between June 16 and July 15 next year in Russia, across all 14 African countries it has operations except in South Africa.
South Africa-based SuperSport has also received the rights meaning that the firm, which is the leader in Kenya’s pay-TV market, will face stiffer competition in wooing football fans to its platform come 2018.
“We are delighted to secure the broadcast rights to the 2018 World Cup, a tournament that every soccer fan across the globe looks forward to every four years,” said Mark Lisboa, StarTimes’ vice president, in a statement.
StarTimes and SuperSport are among four African broadcasters who received approval from world football governing body FIFA to air the World Cup as well as six of its other global tournaments.
During the 2014 World Cup hosted by Brazil, national broadcaster KBC, DStv (a subsidiary of MultiChoice), StarTimes and Zuku were caught up in a bruising court battle regarding media rights to the tournament.
The telecoms regulator unsuccessfully tried to force KBC to share the tournament content with StarTimes and Zuku –as it had done with DStv— on grounds that the broadcaster had acquired the rights using taxpayers’ money.
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