SABC Sport

What is SABC Sport?

SABC Sport is the sports service of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the public broadcaster constituted under the Broadcasting Act No. 4 of 1999. It operates across three surfaces: a dedicated free-to-air television channel, sport on the general SABC television channels and radio networks, and the sabcsport.com site and app, which carry live scores, streaming, a television schedule, radio and podcast audio, catch-up video and sections for soccer, cricket, rugby and other sports.^[9]

What distinguishes it from the commercial broadcasters is that its obligations are written into statute rather than into contracts. Section 10(1) of the Broadcasting Act sets out what the public service must do, and subsection (i) requires it to “include national sports programming as well as developmental and minority sports”.^[1] The words are the operative text of the provision, not a summary of it: the duty extends beyond marquee events to developmental and minority sport.

The same Act constrains what a rival may buy. Section 30(7) provides that “Subscription broadcasting services may not acquire exclusive rights for the broadcast of national sporting events, as identified in the public interest from time to time by the Authority in consultation with the Minister and the Minister of Sport and in accordance with the regulations determined by the Authority through a public process”.^[1] The Authority is ICASA, and the instrument it made under that power is described in the next section.

What does SABC Sport cover?

The listing regime shapes a large part of the schedule. ICASA's Sports Broadcasting Services Amendment Regulations, 2021, gazetted on 31 March 2021 in Government Gazette No. 44372, amend the 2010 regulations and set out the national sporting events that free-to-air licensees may broadcast live, delayed-live or delayed. The schedule runs to 21 events and includes the Africa Cup of Nations, the All Africa Games, the CAF Champions League, the CAF Confederation Cup, the Commonwealth Games, the COSAFA Cup, the Currie Cup, the FIFA Women's World Cup, the FIFA World Cup, the ICC Cricket World Cup, the Rugby World Cup, the Summer Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games.^[2]

Beyond the listed events, the corporation reported acquiring 26 new sports rights during 2023/24 against an annual target of 12.^[4] At the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which finished on 19 July 2026, Eyewitness News reported on 9 June 2026 that the SABC would carry 35 matches free to air across SABC 1, SABC 2, SABC 3, the SABC Sport channel and the corporation's streaming platform, describing the arrangement as a sub-licensing deal.^[5]

Sub-licensed sport has been contested territory. In October 2023 eMedia lodged a complaint with the Competition Commission and an application at the Competition Tribunal over provisions in MultiChoice's sub-licensing agreements with the SABC that prevented the public broadcaster from carrying sub-licensed rugby and cricket on the Openview platform; MultiChoice characterised the complaint as free-riding.^[7] TechCentral reported that the parties settled in September 2024 on confidential terms, ending the litigation and resolving the question of SABC channels reaching Openview viewers.^[8]

How large is SABC Sport's audience?

The SABC publishes measured figures in its annual report. The report for 2023/24 records that the SABC Sport channel, a 24-hour free-to-air service on Openview, reached approximately 894 000 South African viewers a day on TAMS, the Television Audience Measurement Survey.^[4] The same report gives daily viewing for the general channels on TAMS data as 9.8 million for SABC1, 5.1 million for SABC2 and 2.9 million for S3.^[4]

For radio it reports Broadcast Research Council RAMS figures covering January 2022 to December 2023: 24.2 million adult listeners per seven-day period across the public broadcast service stations and 5.9 million across the public commercial service stations.^[4] Those are corporation-wide figures; no separate listening figure for sports programming could be retrieved.

The measurement base itself was rebuilt during the period. The Broadcast Research Council of South Africa's TVM Establishment Survey 2026, fielded face to face between 6 September 2025 and 28 February 2026 with 15 378 completed interviews, sets the television and online-video measurement universe at 15.8 million households, which it puts at 86 per cent of South African households; the BRC states that the survey was adopted industry-wide in September 2026.^[6] No channel figure measured on that new universe could be retrieved, so the 894 000 reading, dated to 2023/24, remains the most recent measured reach obtainable for the channel.

Since when has SABC Sport existed?

Sport has been carried on SABC television and radio for as long as the corporation has broadcast, but the dedicated service has a precise start. MyBroadband reported on 24 June 2021 that the SABC launched its 24-hour sports channel that evening, available on SABC digital television broadcasting, on Openview at channel 124 and on the TelkomONE streaming service.^[3] The corporation's general manager for sport, Gary Rathbone, was quoted saying the channel would carry a mix of niche and popular sports and balance international and local coverage, with emphasis on school and women's sport — a stated intention at launch rather than a measured description of what it has since carried.^[3]

The statutory framework is older and separately dated. The Broadcasting Act No. 4 of 1999 was assented to on 23 April 1999, and it is that Act which carries both the public-service sport obligation in section 10(1)(i) and the restriction on exclusive subscription rights in section 30(7).^[1] The regulations that give the section 30(7) power its content were most recently amended on 31 March 2021.^[2] The founding of the corporation, the passage of the Act and the launch of the channel are three different dates and are not interchangeable.

Why does SABC Sport matter in South Africa's sport?

It matters because it is the route by which listed sport reaches households that do not subscribe to pay television. The BRC puts the measured television and online-video universe at 15.8 million households, 86 per cent of South African households, as of its 2026 establishment survey.^[6] Section 30(7) of the Broadcasting Act exists to stop exclusive subscription deals closing off the listed events to that wider free-to-air footprint.^[1]

It also matters because the mandate is not discretionary. The obligation to carry developmental and minority sport is statutory, and the corporation reports against it: 26 new sports rights acquired in 2023/24 against a target of 12 is a reported performance measure.^[4] The channel's stated launch emphasis on school and women's sport sits in the same place.^[3]

Where the SABC acquires listed events by sub-licence rather than by direct purchase, the terms of that sub-licence determine which platforms may carry it; that was the substance of the eMedia complaint of October 2023 and of the settlement reported in September 2024.^[7][8] The 2026 FIFA World Cup arrangement, under which 35 of 104 matches were free to air, is the shape that compromise takes.^[5]