What is SuperSport?
SuperSport is the sports broadcasting operation of MultiChoice Group, carried as a block of channels on the DStv satellite and streaming platform. It is run from South Africa, and its editorial and production base is South African, but the rights it buys are almost always sold to it as sub-Saharan African packages rather than as South African ones: the Premier League records SuperSport as the holder for “Sub-Saharan Africa” in its list of broadcast partners for the 2025/26 to 2027/28 seasons, with no separate South Africa entry.[5] SA Rugby's May 2026 announcement and the Premier Soccer League extension of June 2026 are stated in the same regional terms.[6][7]
Ownership changed hands during 2025. MultiChoice Group announced on 8 December 2025 that Canal+ had completed the compulsory acquisition of the remaining MultiChoice ordinary shares, under section 124(1) of the Companies Act, with effect from Friday 5 December 2025, and that the company's listings on the JSE and on A2X would terminate on Wednesday 10 December 2025.[1] The Competition Commission had recommended approval of the transaction with conditions on 21 May 2025, among them a three-year retrenchment moratorium, supplier-development commitments the Commission valued at about R26-billion over three years, and a requirement that MultiChoice Group remain incorporated and headquartered in South Africa, together with a commitment to pursue a secondary listing on the JSE.[2]
The Commission's statement also records that the South African broadcasting licences were to be carved out into a separate vehicle, LicenceCo, before implementation, with majority shareholding by historically disadvantaged persons and by workers.[2] A report of a March 2026 parliamentary committee briefing — a single secondary account of those proceedings — sets out the resulting shareholding as Phuthuma Nathi Investments 42.4 per cent, an Identity Partners Itai and Afrifund consortium 30 per cent, MultiChoice Group 20 per cent and a workers' trust 8 per cent, and records ICASA's position, taken in March 2025, that the transaction required no approval under section 13 of the Electronic Communications Act.[3]
What does SuperSport cover?
The core of the schedule is the three sports that carry South African rights money. In football, the Premier League names SuperSport as its sub-Saharan Africa rights holder for the 2025/26, 2026/27 and 2027/28 seasons.[5] Domestically, Canal+ Group announced on 3 June 2026 an extension of its Premier Soccer League agreement, under which those matches continue on SuperSport; the announcement, published on SuperSport's own site, names the Betway Premiership, the MTN8, the Carling Knockout and the Nedbank Cup, together with the Motsepe Foundation Championship, and does not state a term or a value.[7] That is the broadcaster's own account of its own deal.
In rugby union, SA Rugby announced on 8 May 2026 that it had signed a rights renewal with the Canal+ Group under which SuperSport continues as the exclusive broadcast rights holder across sub-Saharan Africa for SA Rugby's domestic competitions, Springbok women's matches and junior age-group Springbok matches. SA Rugby described the agreement as multi-year without publishing an end date.[6]
In cricket, Cricket South Africa announced a broadcast agreement with SuperSport running to the end of the 2026-27 season, covering men's and women's international cricket including all Proteas Women internationals, up to 60 per cent of domestic Division 1 white-ball matches, and the finals of the CSA T20 Challenge and the One-Day Cup; CSA retained the right to produce and stream non-televised domestic matches on its own channels.[8] The MyBroadband account of the channel's thirtieth year, published on 18 September 2025, records 20 SuperSport channels on DStv at that date.[4]
How large is SuperSport's audience?
No audience figure specific to SuperSport could be retrieved. The nearest measured proxy is the subscriber base of the platform that carries it. TechCentral reported that MultiChoice's last published subscriber count was 14.4 million at the end of 2025, disclosed in March 2026, against 14.9 million a year earlier, and that this was the final such disclosure: as a listed company MultiChoice had reported 90-day active subscribers by tier twice a year, and after the December 2025 delisting that reporting stopped.[9]
The same report records that Canal+, in results covering the first half of 2026, gave a combined figure of 22.6 million subscribers for its entire Africa and Asia segment without breaking out MultiChoice.[9] A segment total spanning two continents cannot be read as a South African figure, and the MultiChoice subscriber count is in any case a platform count across sub-Saharan Africa rather than a count of SuperSport viewers.
No panel measurement of SuperSport channel audiences from the Broadcast Research Council of South Africa could be retrieved, and no per-channel figure appears in any source retrieved for this page.
Since when has SuperSport existed?
The MyBroadband account published on 18 September 2025 dates the launch of SuperSport as a standalone 24-hour channel to 1995, and records that sports output had been carried under an M-Net SuperSport branding from around 1988, inside the M-Net subscription service, before that.[4] The 1988 branding and the 1995 standalone launch are different events: the second is the founding of the channel as a separate service, the first is a name applied to sports programming within an existing one.
The relevant recent corporate change is the Canal+ transaction: MultiChoice Group recorded the compulsory acquisition of its remaining shares as effective 5 December 2025 and the termination of its JSE and A2X listings as 10 December 2025.[1] The acquisition of the group is not the founding of the channel, and the Competition Commission's May 2025 conditions were attached to the group transaction rather than to SuperSport as a brand.[2]
SuperSport's own framing of its history, in material quoted by MyBroadband, is that it has brought viewers “every triumph, every tear, and every unforgettable moment that has defined our nation's sporting history” — the broadcaster's characterisation of itself.[4]
Why does SuperSport matter in South Africa's sport?
It matters because of where the rights sit. The National Soccer League, SA Rugby and Cricket South Africa have each contracted their principal live rights to SuperSport.[6][7][8] Overseas football follows the same pattern: the Premier League's own broadcaster list names SuperSport for sub-Saharan Africa through 2027/28.[5]
That concentration is also why the ownership change was treated as a public-interest matter: the Competition Commission's recommendation of 21 May 2025 attached employment, ownership and procurement conditions and required the licensing entity to be carved out under majority historically disadvantaged and worker shareholding before the transaction was implemented.[2]
Its newsroom, studios and rights buying are South African, and most of what it broadcasts is South African sport, but it is sold, measured and contracted as a sub-Saharan African service, and its published audience numbers — while they were published — were regional platform totals rather than national ones.[9]
References
- MultiChoice Group Limited — SENS announcement, Termination of MultiChoice JSE and A2X listings, 8 December 2025. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Competition Commission of South Africa — Commission recommends approval of MultiChoice/Canal+ acquisition with conditions, 21 May 2025. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- IOL — How Canal+ purchased MultiChoice: regulators brief the parliamentary committee, 17 March 2026. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- MyBroadband — SuperSport at 30, 18 September 2025. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Premier League — Broadcast deals for the 2025/26 to 2027/28 seasons, list of overseas broadcast partners. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- SA Rugby — SA Rugby and Canal+ sign rights renewal agreement, 8 May 2026. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- SuperSport — Canal+ Group announces extension of PSL broadcast rights, 3 June 2026. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- Cricket South Africa — CSA announces new broadcast deal with SuperSport. Accessed 2026-09-19.
- TechCentral — DStv's subscriber count has gone dark. Accessed 2026-09-19.