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Sports Media · South Africa

Top sports media in South Africa

The outlets that cover sport in South Africa — the sports press, the broadcasters, the agencies and the specialist titles.
✓ Last reviewed: September 2026

These are the outlets that cover sport in South Africa — the sports press, the broadcasters that hold or have held rights, the national news agency where it carries sport, and the specialist titles of national standing. Single-sport titles without national standing are not listed here; they appear on the media list for their own sport.

How this list is ordered. By role and national standing — the sports press first, then the broadcasters that hold or have held rights, then the national news agency and the specialist titles. That order is set once and stays put, so a page that has been cited does not rearrange itself later. The Tranco figure against each outlet is shown for reference and does not set the order. Tranco is a research ranking of web domains that averages the Chrome User Experience Report, Cloudflare Radar, Majestic, Cisco Umbrella and Farsight over the preceding 30 days, on the list of September 2026. It ranks a whole domain, not a sports desk. A general daily's rank counts every reader it has, most of whom did not come for sport, so a national newspaper will sit above a dedicated sports title that has more sports readers than it does.

1. SuperSportBroadcaster · Television · Tranco 34,529 — Pay-television sports broadcaster headquartered in South Africa and distributed across sub-Saharan Africa on DStv, owned by MultiChoice Group, which Canal+ took to full ownership in December 2025. 2. SABC SportBroadcaster · Television · Tranco 274,357 — The sports service of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, a statutory broadcaster whose public mandate under the Broadcasting Act includes national sports programming and developmental and minority sports. 3. News24 SportGeneral sports coverage · News site · Tranco 4,715 — The sport section of News24, the subscription news site published by Media24, whose figures filed with the Competition Commission put it at 817 709 daily active users and 85 185 digital subscribers in September 2023. 4. TimesLIVEGeneral sports coverage · News site · Tranco 18,158 — Arena Holdings' digital news title and the online home of the Sunday Times, carrying a daily sport section; it states that it began operations in September 2009. 5. SowetanGeneral sports coverage · Newspaper · Tranco 47,899 — Johannesburg daily newspaper published by Arena Holdings, with a digital edition under the SowetanLIVE masthead; a wire report dates its first appearance to Monday 2 February 1981. 6. IOL SportGeneral sports coverage · News site · Tranco 5,675 — The sport section of IOL, a South African news site carrying content from the Independent Media titles, with dedicated verticals for football, rugby, cricket, MMA and horse racing. 7. Soccer LadumaSpecialist title · Newspaper · Tranco 60,670 — Weekly football newspaper and digital title listed by Media24 among its newspaper brands, which gives its founding year as 1997, publishing in print and through the SNL24 digital platform.