Presented at the 2008 Broadcasting Education Association Conference in Las Vegas

Introduction

The relationship between sport and media, quasi inexistent in the early 1950s, emerged initially when print media began to report sports information (Rowe 2004).  Radio Broadcasting and later, the emergence of television broadcasting live sports events quickly modified the essence of the relationship between media and sports. Rowe (2004) argues that sport and media supply each other with capital, audience, and content. The amplitude of this interconnection is evident in the size and diversity of the audience of international sport events, such as the men’s football World Cup and the Olympics. Toby Miller et al (2001) posit that 30 billion people in 188 nations watched the World Cup in 1990 and 35 billion watched the Olympics in 1996. The enormity of these audiences five to six times the world population suggest the significance of television in reaching audiences throughout the world. Football, as the most popular sport in many countries, has a privileged relationship with television which reflects a relationship extending back to television’s earliest presence in Europe.  The money value of broadcasting rights displays the magnitude of the interdependency.

New technologies such as satellite television played a significant role in the transformation of broadcasting rights and their exponential increase in major football nations such England, Germany, Spain, France, and Italy since the 1990s (Clarke 2002; Jeanrenaud and Kesenne 2006). The new technologies also open national or continental league games to a global audience.  The liberalization of broadcasting policies and new technologies gave new local and international broadcasters license to penetrate targeted local markets involving sporting events locally or internationally hosted or produced. But they significantly provide new opportunities to broadcast events to a global audience. A noteworthy outcome of new television technologies is the capacity to reach football audiences across the world.

International football broadcasting has targeted Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) as well as other geographical areas. However, because of SSA’s socio-economic and historical particularities, the relationship between football and television in this region is significantly distinct from that found in Europe though the two are technically connected.  Unlike the European football and television relationship, which is characterized by a long-term business partnership dating back to the 1940s, the African television and football relationship is a recent fact defined by historical and political factors intrinsically related to colonial and post colonial eras. Indeed, most African countries adopted football as an organized team sport from European colonizers such as France, England, and Portugal. Moreover, European nations such as Russia and Germany brought television to most SSA nations after independence. This paper examines the consequences of this history by comparing the relationship between football and television in Europe and SSA and the implications of the nature of this relationship in the development of sports (particularly football) in both geographical regions.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows:  Section I discusses the background and progression of the relationship between football and television in Europe, and the transformations prompted by new technologies and deregulation.   Section 2 examines the role of television broadcasting in the economic expansion of football. In Section 3 I turn to the globalization of television broadcasting. Section 4 addresses local, continental, and global broadcasting in SSA and the limited economic input of television in local African football.  Section 5 concludes that television broadcasting in SSA is an economic an insuperable economic barrier to sports development.

The Early years of Football and Television

The very first radio broadcasting of a sports event by the United Kingdom and the United States—a heavyweight boxing fight in July 1920 (Jeanrenaud and Kesenne 2006)—opened up new collaborative ground for sport and electronic media.  More than ten years later the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games became the televised sport event. The 1937 British tennis open Wimbledon and a 1939 Ivy League college baseball game would follow (Jeanrenaud and Kesenne 2006). These events were experiments, as was the first broadcast of a football game, in 1938. The technology to film a football game for television was available, but authorities in England’s football league were suspicious of the medium, which they feared would cannibalize live spectatorship. They had banned television cameras at football games in 1931, but on 9 April 1938 the BBC managed to persuade them to lift the ban (Dobson and Goddard 2001). While the experiment was a success, World War II limited the development of television’s involvement in sports in England, and telecasting would not begin again until 1955. Only sporadic highlights of league games were telecasted from 1955 to 1964 (Dobson and Goddard 2001). In 1964, however, weekly highlights of the British league games, “Match of the Day” became available on BBC.  BBC maintained the exclusive rights to show major sports events in England until 1981 (Dobson and Goddard 2001).

US telebroadcasts of baseball, American football, and basketball during the period influenced the adoption of the practice in Europe and the United Kingdom. The partnership between baseball and the media went back to the beginning of the 20^th century, and this established the economics of acquiring broadcasting rights. The motion picture industry purchased the right to film and distributed the Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series in 1910 (Cashmore, quoted in Dobson & Goddard). A $400,000 radio rights deal to broadcast the World Series followed in 1939. When television became available, broadcasting rights culture was already in place. Yet the MLB and other sports governing bodies, such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association, shared the British football leagues’ concern that televising sports events would destroy game attendance. The networks pursued rights to league, championships, and competitions, however, with ABC leading the charge, leveraging advertising revenues bolstered by technology such as slow motion, close-ups, replays, and split screens.

First in the United States and then throughout the world, television demonstrated its appeal for advertisement resources that overcame the sports leagues’ suspicion. The association between sport and television evolved to an interdependency. Competition among broadcasters, production quality, and media and sport partnership already well established in the US, increasingly determined the development of media and football in Europe and elsewhere in the world.

The BBC’s success in televising the FIFA world cup in 1966 prompted ITV to seek contracts for the Gillette Cup in country cricket broadcasting. The economic interdependency between British media and and sports generally and football particularly would grow over time, particularly after the mid-1980s  The alliance between sports, media, and money would come to seem natural.

Economic Implications of Television Broadcasting

Broadcasting Rights

In the United States the presence of private television produced early competition among broadcasters. Networks competed to acquire television rights to various professional or college competitions or events from leagues or teams. The United Kingdom lacked the competitive market, in spite of the presence of ITV as the only private broadcaster, because BBC and ITV acted as a cartel until 1988 (Downward, Dawson, and ebrary 2000). But technological changes and the liberalization of broadcasting laws led to the introduction of new private television in the European media market, and the television rights market has been a supply-side cartel facing the demand side represented by various televisions channels since the 1980s (Andreff and Szymanski 2006). As the number television stations, both public and private, increased, sports broadcasting became a competitive matter. Several entities began competing to acquire the right to broadcast leagues teams or federations, sports events, and competitions. In the 1980s these changes generated various models in terms of the television rights negotiations, the amount paid by media organizations and then the distribution of rights among the recipients, clubs, and leagues.

Jeanrenaud and Kesenne (2006) describes the two most common models of television rights management and defines how leagues or individual teams negotiate and distribute the revenues generate by television rights. Clubs and local leagues broadcasting rights structures generally conform for long periods to one model or the other, while international club competitions, as well as national teams’ games and competitions, might mix the two or change their approach frequently.

In the first model “The individual club ownership” (ICO), individual clubs have the power to negotiate the television rights directly with broadcasters (Jeanrenaud and Kensenne, 2006). This model instituted by anti monopoly law prevented leagues from negotiating television rights with broadcasters.  Competition between the broadcasters attempting to outbid each other, drove the fees for television rights up, particularly for top teams—high-performing teams with strong fan bases and high player profiles. The International Olympic Committee also influences the broadcasters’ power structure.  As Jeanrenaud and Kesenne (2006) note, one of the consequences of this model is constitution of monopoly by full control of competitions or championships by one broadcaster bid winning. Indeed, the bid winner exclusively controls the entire package. Live games, highlights, and related product object of different bids can be seen only on one channel, the bid winner’s. As attempts to limit the de facto monopoly position of bid winners grew, broadcasting law makers had to intervene to limit the risk of monopoly. In Italy a law limited the numbers of games of a championship a television could bid on to 60% and Spain passed a law prohibiting the exclusive broadcasting of championship games by a single broadcaster (Jeanrenaud and Kesenne 2006). In response, Spanish broadcasters merged and constituted new cartels as an attempt to limit television rights inflation by increasing their bargaining power.

In the second model, which Jeanrenaud and Kesenne (2006) dub the “right pooling by the league (RPL) model”, leagues and clubs control broadcasting rights as one pool. According to an analysis by Roger Clarke (2002)this collective rights package provides the greatest profits to the league in the short to mid-term.This supply-cartel driven model, by segmenting the product into live championship games, highlights, or cup games, takes advantage of broadcasters’ competition to the benefice of the league (Andreff and Bourg 2006). Broadcasters with various delivery technologies such as pay-TV, pay-per-view and more recently portable devices and the Internet, bid on each of these packages. Facing the league-clubs cartel, broadcasters compete ferociously. One of the consequences of the RPL model is the rising cost of rights and the tendency for broadcasters to merge in order to have fewer broadcasters and, therefore more negotiating power towards the league or team cartel.

International competitions such as continental clubs competitions generally fall under the RPL model. Continental confederations, such the European Union of Football Associations (UEFA) in Europe, form an unchallenged monopoly over the continental clubs or national teams’ competitions.  The confederation, the clubs, and national teams maintain a monopoly over international club competitions and the European national teams’ tournaments and handle all negotiations for these events. Federations also negotiate television rights for national teams’ games. The African Confederation of Football (CAF) and other continental confederations such as the South American Confederation of Football and the Asian Football League control the rights for the national teams and continental club competitions with occasionally political intervention. Indeed in many countries, a tacit law allows the government to ensure that the buyers of the broadcasting rights broadcast the national team’s games and continental national teams’ competitions on free to air television broadcaster.  Scholarship on such divergences from the RPL and ICO models has been limited, and scant research addresses individualized agreements that are common between continental leagues and government-owned broadcasting corporations from developing nations.

Rising Stakes

Regardless of the model in place, ICO or RPL, television rights in general, and football television rights more specifically, have significantly increased since the 1990s. Clarke (2002)notes that in 1990 television rights for the FIFA World Cup cost $557 million and in 2002 $1 billion. On its web site FIFA reports earning $2.448 billion through the sale of television rights in 2014 (FIFA 2015). The significant increase occurred with a notable internationalization of broadcasters involved in television rights for major football nations such England, Germany, Spain, France and Italy.

 

The above table (Collignon and Sultan, Nicolas 2014) shows the increase in television broadcasting rights over a 22 years period. England shows the largest increase and Germany the lowest. Clarke (Clarke 2002) states as the justification of this exponential increase, “sport has gone through the effects of the satellite and digital revolution”. Jeanrenaud and Kensenne (2006) note that satellite television technology and other new modes of football content distribution have transformed the European television right market by allowing viewers around the globe to watch football without depending on national networks. The continued transformation of digital communication through innovations like high definition (HD) imaging for television, large LED screens, new distributions technologies through high speed internet, mobile telephony with broadband technology for smartphones, and smart TV continue to expand the distribution options for broadcasters and media groups, and viewers.

There are two angles from which to analyse the impact of communications technologies and increasingly digital distribution on television rights. The first approach essentially is the exacerbation of the competition for acquisition of television and digital rights as a consequence of the presence of new broadcasters on domestic markets. The second aspect is how the transnational capacity of satellite televisions has generated a global audience, leading to increasing competition for global football audiences. This paper will proceed to analyse each in turn.

New Technologies and New Entrants for Local Audience

Jeanrenaud and Kensenne (2006) argue that until the 1980s free-on-air television in the form of limited, government-owned stations, dominated the European and US market. But television by satellite, cable, and digital transmission, and liberalization of broadcasting policies changed the television landscape in the late 1980s. A wide array of  pay-TV and pay-per-view stations privately-owned came on the market (Jeanrenaud and Kesenne 2006).  These changes, stimulated by new technology, increased the number of broadcasters and subsequently the competition for local audience. For example, on February 5, 1989, Americano-Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch launched four satellite television channels, including Sky Sports which wasdedicated entirely to sports  (R. A. Smith 2001). When British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB)—Murdoch’s four channels after their merge with British Satellite Broadcasting in 1990—acquired the television rights for the English premier league, for the first time since television broadcast of the games began live Premier League games did not show on free-on-air TV (A. Smith and Paterson 1998, 163). In a parallel development, Canal +, a pay-TV started broadcasting in France, acquired the television rights for 21 games of the French first division league in 1984 (Pierrat and Riveslanga 2002). Both Sky and Canal+ view football audiences as potential subscribers and consequently, an important revenue stream and appeal product. Indeed, sport has driven audiences and subscribers in many television markets (Boyle and Haynes 2000).

The triumph of pay-tv broadcasters has not brought ongoing stability to football content. Murdoch’s companies own broadcasting rights to 3,500 live sporting events in the United States and broadcasts more than 25,000 hours  of sports on its four channels in Britain and ESPN owns quantity in UK/US (Thussu 2006). The domination of these two players has been steady for years in these two markets, but the constant availability of alternatives contributes to keeping prices of broadcasting rights high.”In France, the Canal+ monopoly over the French Ligue 1 regular season games lasted till 2013, when beIn Sports, then the  new sport brand of Al Jazeera, acquired segments of French football live content and parts of the FIFA World Cup games for 2014. The competition only increased the fees broadcasters paid for sports content.

The English Premier League (EPL) is one of the most recent financial beneficiaries of the fierce competition among broadcasters and media groups for broadcasting rights acquisition. In 2015 EPL signed a broadcasting rights agreement of £5,136 (English Premier League 2015) for 2016-2019, a 70 per cent increase over the previous contract. Aggressive competition between the British Telecom (BT) and SkyBSky, as well as the packaging system and the blind bid approach EPL adopted led to the record payment. As new entrant, BT contributed to inflating the bids and consequently revenues for the leagues, just as beIN Sports had in France. As that case suggests, the national origin of the new broadcaster does not dampen the new entrant effect. Deregulation, privatizations of state control groups, and globalization encouraged new entrants in domestic broadcast markets once satellite techonology made their audiences global.

Table 2 (Chibber 2014)  illustrates the exponential increase in international television rights for EPL. With thirty eight broadcasters outside the UK (English Premier League 2013) overseas TV deals for four years of rights generated more than 2 billion USD in revenue.

The Globalization of Television Broadcasting

Broadcasters can now reach football audiences across the world, and the cumulative television audience of  3.2 billion people in average watched the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (FIFA 2011). For the 2014 World Cup in Brazil this number are expected by FIFA to be higher (Thussu 2006). Disney/ABC’s subsidiary ESPN international telecasts in 21 languages to 182 nations and 155 million households through 20 networks across Asia, Australia, and Latin America (Thussu 2006). As Bromberger (Bromberger 1998), states, “Football has become a form of universal reference, one of the rare, if not the only, elements of a world masculine culture, understood by all, transgressing the diversity of regions, nations, and generations” (p.25). Even the limitation Bromberger suggests when he attributes a masculine culture to football no longer applies in the same way in that, as FIFA points out, “4.1 million women are now playing football within organized structures, constituting a 54% increase on the 2000 results”(FIFA 2007)

Thussu (2006) argues, along the same lines, that live coverage of prestigious football league events is as much a football event in Cameroon as it is in the Czech Republic. As a global culture, television coverage of football events extend stadium and sports arenas beyond geographic and cultural borders (Thussu, 2006). Thussu also points out that sports coverage is highly suitable to pay-TV. Indeed, the disparity between live game audience interest in comparison to other packages such as highlights illustrates the importance broadcasters give to live games rights acquisition.  Singer quoted by Rowe states that “There’s a good reason why sports is a TV staple: It’s human drama at a base level, it’s cheap to produce and it’s live” (Rowe 2004, 63). Increasingly advertising aimed at a multi country audience drives the business of television, and football reliably attracts such audiences (Straubhaar 2007). Miller et al note that Rupert Murdoch described sports as a “battering ram” into new television markets and that executives at Telecommunicaton Corporatoin(TCI) calls live matches “the universal glue for global content” (Miller et al in (Rowe 2004, 90).

Domestic and international broadcasters clamour for live football played by the EPL, Spain “Liga”, Germany “Bundesliga”, the French “Ligue 1” and the Italian “Serie A”. In addition to segmentation between live games, highlights, championship games, and cup games, leagues offer broadcasting rights by geographical audience. Transnational or local television stations purchase the rights for the geographical zone they cover directly from the league or from a secondary distributor. Canal Horizons, the international section of the French pay-TV Canal+, broadcasts a number French League 1 games in francophone Africa, as well as a few Anglophone and Lusophone countries. BeInSport in addition to their penetration of the French media landscape owns the rights to live broadcasting of EPL games for the Arabic speaking audience (Martov, 2011). Global rights continue to exist for satellite TV.

The European competitions such as the Champions League, the UEFA cup and the European Nations Championship are viewed across the world through pay-TV cable or satellite TV. In the US the Champions League final is broadcasted live by ESPN and subject to fierce competition among the US national television network when the bid time is up. Continental competitions and world class events benefit more from the geographical segmentation of the market. FIFA sells rights to broadcast the world cup in number of countries individually. Distributors also bid on the African Cup of Nation (CAN), the Asian Nations Championship, the Copa America in Latin America and the Gold Cup for Central and North America.

As revenue for broadcasting rights climbs, the financial status of football increasingly depends on it. The richest European clubs depend on television revenues for between 30 and 60 per cent of total revenue. As the next section will describe, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has a distinctive socio-economic environment which makes broadcasting rights revenues more marginal for African football except the CAN and the African Champion’s League what constitute a challenge in supporting a viable football economy in SSA.

Football and Television in Sub-Sahara Africa

Considerably sparser literature and documentation covers the landscape of football and television in SSA than in Europe, the United States, or Britain. As this section will describe, television has a different history in the SSA than in these places, and considerably less interdependency exists between the business of football and the business of television.

Television in Sub-Sahara Africa

In most countries in SSA, the availability of television has accompanied political decolonization, although British colonizers introduced it in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Zambia (Bourgault 1995). The first wave of television in Francophone Africa began in 1963, when audiences in Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Congo, Burkina Faso (former Haute Volta) and the Democratic Republic of Congo saw their first television program. In the second wave, television broadcasting launched in Benin, Togo, the Central African Republic and Guinea in the 1970s. Cameroon, Mali, and Chad joined the other countries in the late 1980s. However, even as most countries in SSA had television, building an audience faced the challenges of sporadic on inexistent access to electricity, weak local transmitters, and low income for the majority of the inhabitant of the region; SSA had the low television penetration in the world. According to the World Band until 2003, SSA excluding South Africa and Nigeria had 51 television sets per 1000 people  (Worl Bank 2006, 247). In all of these countries, the state owned and controlled television, colonial rather than local languages dominated broadcasts, and production facilities were under-developed  (Myton & Teer-Tomaselli, 2005; Ba, 1996). As Ba (1996)points out, whereas movie production had offered the material, infrastructural, and human resources to produce early television in Europe and the United States, African countries lacked both these established modes of production and a transferable movie audience.

SSA television programming thus depended on imported material (Mytton, Teer-Tomaselli, and Tudesq 2005). Bilateral aid between African countries and European countries as well as colonial heritage facilitates the flow of programming from European countries and SSA countries, especially France and Britain to their former colonies (Bourgault 1995).

In the late 1980s, television technology, telecommunications and information technology, and deregulation of media made transnational television possible in SSA (Mytton, Teer-Tomaselli, and Tudesq 2005). The launch of the Satellite PAS-4 by PamAmSat, a commercial satellite operator based in the United States provided the biggest boost (Paterson 1998). By July 2002, around 250 channels were transmitted by some 22 satellites over Africa. Viewers with the appropriate receiver, decoder, or satellite dish could access these channels.

Satellite television rendered the state-owned television monopoly obsolete. Paterson (Paterson 1998, 575) noted that satellite television added their pressure to the already growing stress for democratization and economic liberalization.  Deregulation of media policies followed, coinciding with democratization.  Consequently most governments broke up the monopoly of state – owned media and encouraged private radio and television. All media were open to the private sector in Gabon, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Mali, and Benin. New television entrants appeared in Gabon in 1988, Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire in 1991, and in Senegal, Mali, and Benin in 1992 (Ba 1996).

The new deregulation transformed the cooperation between French television producers and African media  (Mytton, Teer-Tomaselli, and Tudesq 2005; Paterson 1998). Indeed, the domination of international satellite television by English speaking countries  pushed France to reform their international media system by creating Canal France International (CFI) in May 1989 to supply programs to Francophone television in Africa via satellite, the taped system previously in use seemed dated (Mytton, Teer-Tomaselli, and Tudesq 2005). To ensure the delivery of CFI programming to African television broadcasters, France paid the fee for satellite transmission and ground-air-ground and also offered the reception material. CFI began to broadcast to Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea between 1989 and 1990 over satellite and through provision of programs for rebroadcast on local and state owned television stations. (Ba 1996)estimates that in the mid 1990s 20 to 80% of SSA TV programs come from CFI. CFI also supports television production in Africa and assited local stations in broadcasting ten minutes of African international news from different countries.

TV5 joined the air in Francophone Africa in 1992. Initially, the broadcaster was termed TV5 Europe, providing material produced in France, French Belgium, Switzerland, and Quebec-Canada. Viewers consider TV5 to be “francophonie television” more than CFI—not French television, but television belonging to 51 French speaking countries or regions. TV5 has the explicit goal of defending French as a language and promoting cultural and linguistic diversity (France Diplomacie 2013). Multipoint, Multichannel Distribution Service technology used by TV5 was specifically adopted to provide francophone Africa with a variety of programs. Canal Horizons, an affiliate of Canal + was the first to provide Pay per View television to Francophone Africa. It started broadcasting in 1991 in Senegal. In 2002 Canal Horizons it launched more than twenty radio and television stations that can be received by satellite dish in Cote d’Ivoire (Mytton, Teer-Tomaselli, and Tudesq 2005). Today viewers throughout francophone Africa and also in some Portuguese speaking and English speaking countries can receive Canal Horizon stations by antenna, MMDS or satellite dish.

French media reforms pediod corresponded to media regulations reform in Francophone African countries. Local television production companies’ lack of resources made it easy for CFI and TV5 to dominate satellite and MMDS television. Francophone Africa had more that 50,000 satellite dishes in 1992 only four years after their introduction, largely in major cities where they are more affordable than in rural areas (Ba 1996). The 2013 report by the Vivendi group, the holding owner of Canal+, estimates 1.08 million households in the 31 francophone countries including Madagascar subscribe to it (Vivandi Group 2013). The same report claims a trend of strong growth, which Canal+ recording 350.000 new African subscribers in 2013 (Cassini 2014). French language provides Canal+ with a competitive advantage in francophone countries, as English programming has not penetrated francophone Africa very much.

English language from British television has not penetrated Anglophone Africa in the same way that French language television has penetrated Francophone Africa. The South African media conglomerate Multichoice, in existence since 1993, dominates Anglophone Africa. South Africa initiated media reform and liberalization under the apartheid regime, awarding the first license for pay TV to a consortium of newspaper publishers in 1986. They started M-Net launched an analogue service in 1992 (Multichoice, n.d.).  M-Net then became Multichoice in 1993 and MIH Holdings in 1996 (Angelopulo and Potgieter 2013). Following the launch of digital satellite TV services across Africa in 1995, Multichoice provided satellite service and more than 20 African countries receive it today (Multichoice, n.d.). By the end of the Apartheid Multichoice was established as a dominant satellite pay TV provider in South Africa and across the Continent (Alegi 2010, 107).

The early positioning of Canal+ and Multichoice DSTV positioned these two satellite television providers in a leading position over the SSA. The French conglomerate Canal + moved into Anglophone television when it merged with Multichoice and partnered with Nethold, which placed the group in a dominant position over English-language television in SSA (Paterson 1998, 574). Most Multichoice and program providers are outside Africa (Mytton, Teer-Tomaselli, and Tudesq 2005). Like in Francophone Africa, the dominance of imported content for most of Multichoice illustrates the limited production capacity of African television broadcasters. However, a growing number of television channels supplied by DST and Canal+ produce content in Africa. Sport broadcasting and more specifically football broadcasting and the broadcasting rights effects exemplify the continuous transformation of television broadcasting across SSA.

Broadcasting Rights in Sub Saharan Africa

Football’s relationship with SSA television is far younger than the sport’s relationship with European television. However, as elsewhere, the drive of new technologies and media deregulation fundamentally transformed the overall relationship between football and television broadcasting in SSA.

In 2000 the CAF signed a contract to allow with French businessman and CEO of Sportfive Jean-Claude Darmon to broadcast four CAN competitions for 50 million USD (Potet, 2002).  Until 2006 Sportfive was a European base sport marketing conglomerate  in charge of many European, teams, leagues, and competitions TV and Media rights, marketing hospitality and stadium consulting. In 2006 Sportfive was acquired by the French conglomerate Lagardere Ulimited. Sportfive has monopolized broadcasting of CAF competitions and as part now part of Lagardere Sports and Entertainment renewed the contract with CAF through 2028 (Lagarder Sports and Entertainment, n.d.).  Although similar to the RPL model, Sportfive’s arrangement with CAF has its own specificities. Another significant particularity is the fact that Sportfive granted the broadcasting rights monopoly to a private African television broadcaster LC2 throughout Africa. Organizations such as LC2 which not existed prior to deregulation of media in SSA, illustrates how satellite television broadcasting and media deregulation contribute to the privatization of African elite football broadcasting economy.   Satellite television broadcasting and the transforming economics of football and media also gave CAF an opportunity to embrace the broadcasting rights economy and generate media and sponsorship revenues (Alegi 2010, 110).

Super Sport and the SSA leagues partnership

Supersport, part of the Multichoice group, started broadcasting in 1987 and became a distinct branch of the group in 1989. Its aggressively acquired rights and currently broadcasts to approximatively 50 countries in SSA, providing HD, mobile phone, and internet content providing sports news, live sports and video highlights over digital and satellite technology. SuperSport’s domestic expansion in South Africa occurred with limited competition, as the free to air national broadcaster, South Africa Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and Multichoice dominate the market in spite of a lack of legal restriction. It acquired the broadcasting rights to the South African Professional Soccer League, the Premier Soccer League (PSL) in 2007 (Supersport n.d), competing only with SABC, just as the pay-tv competitor Canal+ in France overcame TFI. The number of local subscriptions to Multichoice grew as a result of the acquisition. SuperSport’s 24 sport channels seven HD channels, has become the main sport content television broadcaster in South Africa a position it leveraged to expand to English speaking countries throughout Africa. Every English or Portuguese speaking African country has access to Multichoice and therefore SuperSport channels. SuperSport launched SuperSport MaXimo in Portuguese in 2006 and subsequently expanded its offerings for the Lusophone audience to three separate channels.

Outside of CAF and the South Africa Premier Soccer League (PSL), however, most of SSA’s sports industry have not sold their broadcasting rights to date. This is in part explained by the migration of Africa’s best talent to Europe, poor facility quality, and player skill, which limit the economic viability of a broadcasting rights system in SSA.

Football Broadcasting in Sub Saharan Africa

New technologies, deregulation, and the liberalization of media through SSA has significantly increased the football audience in SSA, however. Virtually any television service available in the region offers sports programming. An analysis from ten years ago suggests that sports content represents 6.3 per cent of CFI programs and 25 per cent of Canal Horizon programs (Mytton, Teer-Tomaselli, and Tudesq 2005).  TV5, the other major French speaking transnational television player in SSA, also has football programs, including French first and second division championship live games, French cups, and French national team games. They also broadcast selected games of the African Cup of Nations. Though Canal Horizons football programming is similar to the French programming in that it covers live First Division games and selected European leagues and competition games, it offers special African content.  This content includes programs related to the African players in European championships called “Talents d’Afrique”. Additionally, Canal Horizons and TV5, the main transnational broadcasters in francophone Africa, and increasingly in Anglophone and Lusophone Africa, offer live highlights of European football and replay games.

In addition to TV5 and Canal Horizons, many other transnational television channels are available by satellite and cable, delivered directly with original programming available in their country of origin. Multichoice from South Africa is the main supplier of such television packages to Anglophone Africa. While Multichoice like European market cable and pay-TV suppliers, uses football and sport in general to appeal to subscribers, this football is principally played outside of Africa. There are signs of shift, however. While GTV, a UK-based television company, when bankrupt before it could make good on plans to capitalize on the huge popularity of teams such as Manchester United, Chelsea, and Arsenal in Africa, which it announced in 2007 (Rice 2007)— the company went bankrupt after signing broadcasting rights contracts with national federations in Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Senegal—it seems likely others will follow.  SuperSport, the biggest player in this area, has broadcast local African football in the form of rights to the Nigerian football league in 2006 and the Kenyan and Zambian leagues later on.  Gary Rathbone, a former executive in the SuperSport outside South Africa division, called the venture a success (Edwards 2013). Gary argues that  the business partnership of the SuperSport with the Kenyan Premier Leauge (KLP) has brought back football fans into stadium. This success is mostly noticeable when the two most popular teams, Gor Mahhia FC and Leopards FC that the games are sold out (Akindes 2014) . Supersport does not disclose the broadcasting rights payed to the the KPL  and the impact of their partnership on DsTV subscriptions. Additionnally, the limited financial transparency of football gorverning bodies in Africa do not provide the necessary data to compare and correlate Supersport involvement with economic growth of KPL. It is therefore challenging to estimate how much this partnership has established the economic interdependency between television broadcasters and football leagues in place in Europe.

Between Canal Horizons, and Supersport, SSA access to football television broadcasting has indeniably transformed with satellite television broadcasting. As discussed by several authors (Akindes 2013; Akindes 2013; Alegi 2010; Owumelechili and Akindes 2014) and a previous section of this article access to satellite Pay-tv from Canal Horizons and DSTv with SuperSport boosted African audiences accessibilty to European football leagues.

Conclusion

Football and television in Africa have not been able to create the economic interdependency observed in Europe. Except in South Africa, television rights as sources of revenue for local leagues in  Sub-Saharan Africa do not exist. The weakness of football leagues, the poor quality if football facilities and the drop in attention to local championship games among football spectators are limiting factors for television broadcasters’ interest in investing in local games.  With the exception of the national teams competions organized by the African Football Confedration (CAF) which the media rights are acquired by Lagardère Sports (former Sportfive) other local competitions, for various reasons related to the skill of the teams and the quality of the facilities, draw limited broadcasting attention or interest.  As a result, African international football competitions, the African Cup of Nations, and  CAF Champions League have a marketable appeal to television broadcasters in Africa as well as outside. Similarly to UEFA with the European football competitions, CAF operates as cartel which controls the media rights of all official competions of African national teams and clubs. Lagardère Sports exclusive rights ownership to CAF’s competions led to a global monopoly over CAF’s competitions. Starting from a global monopoly, the geographical segmentation of television broadcasting rights creates regional monopolies which benefits LC2 in Africa. Indeed LC2 holds the monopoly for CAF competitions television broadcasting over more than 40 SSA countries in Africa through 2016.

LC2 monopoly rapilidy displayed limitations in Africa. Because African television broadcasters limited revenue generation opportunities through football broadcasting only national broadcasters can afford to acquire the African Cup of Nations broadcasting rights from LC2. The incitive for the government to acquire the broadcasting rights when the national team is not qualified for CAF’s competitions can fade away. For instance state-run broadcasters in Congo Brazzaville, the Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, and Malawi did not pay for rights on time and, therefore could not broadcast the 2006 CAN’s last three rounds (Afriqu’Echos, 2006). Because of the high price of the television broadcasting rights, the decision to acquire football broadcasting rights from LC2 is often a political decision without a real economic or business rational for the national television broadcasters. Some governments subsidise the national television broadcasting rights acquisition when others do not and object to LC2’s exclusive position.  The broadcasting of the most prestigious African football competion, the CAN, displays the low economic viability for local television broadcasters in SSA.

Yet the confederation is one of the main beneficiary of revenues opportunities offered by the media law democratization and deregulation in the continent Africa. Where as most African leagues depend on state support and need ministries of sport financial input to sustain their activitites., CAF reports a positive balance sheet in 2014 (CAF 2015, 12)

Poor facilities and clubs management, a limiting socio economic environment are among the factors handicapping  African football leagues and clubs broadcasting marketability.  Additinnally the import orientation of football programming on television combined with the economic and training weakness of local productions throughout SSA prevent the implication of local broadcasters in local leagues producation. In fact in many African countries, the television industry has a limited production capacity to compete with transnational televisions.

The absence of a real economic relationship between football and media limited the ability of Sub-Saharan clubs and leagues to benefit from the 90s transformations of their mediascape. In fact the characteristics of the sport-media business model that prevails in Europe still have a very narrow applicability in SSA. At this point of their development, the large majority of African clubs and leagues cannot supply large audiences to television broadcasters for pay-tv subscription and advertisement revenues. Furthermore the absence of a large scale consumerism culture served by  a competitive goods and services producers does not provide a advantageous environment for advertising and sponsorship. These economic, structural, and technological challenges have widened the performance and resources gap between  African and European football.

European football marketing, regular exposure to European football, and the presence of many African footballers on European teams, contribute to the establishment of European football as local football culture.  Andrew Guest (2009) in a blog post describe the phenomenon of EPL fandom in Uganda and Kenya. shows photos Manchester describe the love of African for the EPL and the presence .  Richard Vokes (2010) also describe EPL popularity in a village in rural South-western Uganda. These articles provides images of EPL teams such Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal names on river boats, mud houses, and improvised home theaters to show EPL games, motorcycles. Guest and Vokes illustrate the deep presence of English Premier League’s top teams’ symbols in rural Africa with limited access to individual household television sets. and  the marketing success of Premier League transnational television broadcasting. African marketplaces now sell  European teams’ football jerseys and minibuses in South Africa display team logos (Alegi 2010, 110). European clubs and their symbols have become an essential part of African popular football culture and identity (Owumelechili and Akindes 2014, 1–16).  Although transnational television has contributed to bridging the sport consumption digital divide, satellite television broadcasting and the mediascape liberalization has not contributed to draining revenues to African football at the local leagues and clubs level.

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