JOHANNESBURG - The South African Broadcasting Corporation board has told Parliament that its decision not to buy the rights to broadcast the Rugby World Cup was because it was simply not commercially viable.
The Rugby World Cup kicks off this weekend, with South Africa coming up against the All Blacks on Saturday. “We’re certainly committed to our mandate of ensuring that we broadcast sports of national interest. However, it’s been extremely expensive and that has affected our profit. In the past three years, we’ve lost about R3.8 billion and if we were to continue with this trajectory in the next three years, we would have made another R6.8 billion. It’s just not sustainable for the SABC.”
“About six years ago, there was a contract that was signed in terms of acquiring sports rights and football. That contract was R280 million per year over five years and the revenue generated by the SABC was less than R40 million. That is a commercially wrong deal. What we’ve been doing since the board instructed us to say, we will not sign any deal that is not commercially viable at the SABC.