Africa's Biggest Football Tournament Kicks Off ⚽

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Few things unite Africa like football.

And on Saturday, Africa's largest football tournament, the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), kicked off.

It happens every two years.

And it's one of those moments when global football stars like West Ham’s Mohammed Kudus and Liverpool's Mohammed Salah come back to Africa to play for their countries.

AFCON is a special tournament that the whole world tunes into.

The 2021 edition was watched by over 600 million people from over 180 countries.

And how people access it plays a huge role in this viewership.

And this wouldn’t happen without broadcast

Here, broadcast media like TV and radio are how fans follow their favorite sports, especially football.

They reach big audiences.

And big audiences mean big bucks.

AFCON season fires up digital sports channels, pulling in the crazy numbers advertisers drool over.

For this reason, getting the thumbs up to air it is a flex.

And for AFCON organizers, selling broadcasting rights is a cash cow.

The process sparks intense bidding wars, where media companies fight for broadcasting rights, while organizers hold out for the biggest offer.

In the past, winning was left to the big dogs of broadcasting. Namely:

South Africa’s MultiChoice

MultiChoice is the giant of broadcasting in Africa, with revenue of $3.01 billion (59.1 billion rands):

• They link over 23.5 million African homes in 50 markets with TV subscriptions.

• Their streaming platform Showmax has the biggest market share, edging out Netflix.

• And SuperSport, their sports channel, is where you catch all the major sports action in Africa.

SuperSport has held exclusive rights to the UEFA Champions League for decades. They pay $222 million every year to air the English Premier League.

So AFCON?

It should be child’s play. No way they’d lose out.

Spoiler Alert: They lost out

Two weeks ago, MultiChoice announced that SuperSport would not air this year’s AFCON tournament.

It raised eyebrows among subscribers who weren’t expecting SuperSport to lose their bread and butter.

They lost the bid for special broadcast rights to a new kid on the block- New World TV, and couldn't work out a deal to share the spotlight.

But who is New World TV?

And how did they squeeze out one of Africa's biggest media spenders?

Surprisingly, New World only arrived on the scene in 2015.

Their home turf is Togo - a small West African country with less than 9 million people and a GDP of just $9 billion.

But their spending is nothing close to small.

New World spent $80 million in the “biggest investment by a pan-African broadcaster in CAF’s history”, according to the Confederation of African Football (CAF).

And this isn’t the first time they’ve pulled a bold move.

In 2021, they paid $15 million for the rights to broadcast the 2023 FIFA World Cup in 19 Francophone African countries, beating out French TV giant Canal+.

To add to Canal+’s loss, New World TV now owns the Francophone media rights to the Euro 2024 and 2028, the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023, and the UEFA Nations League.

Canal+ has over 7.6 million subs, and Africa is their second largest market after France.

But New World, with just over 100,000 subs, says ‘Game on’.

Backed by Togolese banks, they’re eyeing seven to ten million customers in the next three years.

They’re bringing their A-game to MultiChoice.

In a stunning turn of events last week, MultiChoice had to turn to New World TV to sublicense AFCON.

And it’s worth asking the question:

Can New World TV take on MultiChoice?

It turns out, the whole ‘David vs. Goliath’ broadcast showdown isn't new to Africa:

• In 2006, Nigeria’s HiTV snagged Premier League broadcasting rights from MultiChoice. But by 2011, they went broke and disappeared.

• Then in 2017, Zimbabwe's Econet media threw another broadcasting competitor, Kwese TV, into the ring. The ambition? Take down MultiChoice. They lasted two years.

Who do we think will win?

Whoever builds for mobile.

Africa’s video content war has shifted from TVs to smartphones.

During the 2023 FIFA World Cup, football fans on the continent turned to digital streaming sites on their phones.

And with 4G and 5G rolling out, higher resolution is coming to video streaming.

We’re betting on the broadcaster who brings on-demand content best via mobile.

What do you think of New World TV’s big broadcast moves?

Let us know here

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