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Cape Town - Cricket South Africa (CSA) on Wednesday announced a three-year deal with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) that will see the public broadcaster provide live television coverage of all the Proteas’ home international matches.
There will also be live ball-by-ball radio coverage on 2000FM as well as a weekly magazine programme on television.
“This is really big news for all cricket fans,” commented CSA Chief Executive, Haroon Lorgat. “We were challenged in the recent past without a deal in place but we are now excited with the new energy and support of the SABC. Free-to-air broadcast is an important ingredient for us to be able to deliver our vision to make cricket a truly national sport that is accessible to all.
“I would like to sincerely thank the SABC for partnering with cricket. Their support will make a big difference to the access, growth and development of the game and will enable all South Africans to watch their Proteas heroes in action.”
Hlaudi Motsoeneng, the SABC’s Chief Operations Officer, stated: “Being a public service broadcaster, we are cognisant of the fact that Cricket, which is a national sport, is followed and loved by millions of South Africans. This broadcast deal with Cricket South Africa, follows on the heels of SABC Sport launching a new lifestyle Cricket magazine programme on SABC 3 titled ‘The Grand Pavilion’ last week.
“It demonstrates our commitment to showing sports of national importance, and we believe through this three-year deal, the SABC will be playing its role in making the sport accessible to every South African citizen through our Radio and Television platforms”.
The importance of having the Proteas in live action on the public broadcaster can be gauged from the following statistics:
There are 7,4 million people who actively follow cricket within South Africa. Of these fans 1,7 million have access to DStv premium where the majority of cricket is broadcast live. This partnership gives the other 5,6 million people access to view the Proteas in action. (source AMPS A)
Over the previous cricket season 13 million South Africans watched the Proteas live via SABC broadcasts. The free-to-air broadcasts helps us to drive growth and diversity of Protea fans with the reach of SABC 3 bringing in African language viewers. (source TAMS)
The coverage starts on SABC3 with the first Sunfoil Test match against the West Indies on December 17 and continues through the KFC T20 International series and the Momentum ODI series in the New Year.
The period of the deal covers future international series against New Zealand (2015); England (2015-16), Australia (2016), New Zealand (2016) and Sri Lanka (2016-17).
SABC will cover the following matches live during the upcoming season:
1st Test - SuperSport Park, Centurion 17-21 December
2nd Test - St George's Park, Port Elizabeth 26-30 December
3rd Test - Newlands, Cape Town 2-6 January
1st T20I - Newlands, Cape Town 9 January
2nd T20I - Wanderers, Johannesburg 11 January
3rd T20I - Kingsmead, Durban 14 January
1st ODI - Kingsmead, Durban 16 January
2nd ODI - Wanderers, Johannesburg 18 January
3rd ODI - Buffalo Park Cricket Stadium, East London 21 January
4th ODI - St George's Cricket Stadium, Port Elizabeth 25 January
5th ODI - SuperSport Park, Centurion 28 January
