Football enthusiasts across Africa can still catch all the excitement and drama of AFCON 2023 through four different Television channels. This comes after Multichoice, the owners of DStv, announced that they would not be broadcasting the prestigious tournament on their DStv channels.
Multichoice has been the official broadcaster of AFCON since 1992, but this time, they were unable to secure the rights to broadcast the 2023 edition, which is scheduled to take place from January 13th to February 11th, 2024. In a statement, SuperSport Channel, a subsidiary of Multichoice, made it clear that they were not able to secure the rights for this tournament.
The reason behind Multichoice’s blackout of AFCON on DStv is the changing landscape of African football television. Togolese broadcaster, New World TV, emerged as the winners of the Free-to-Air and Pay TV rights for all Confederation of African Football (CAF) competitions in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.
Previously, these rights were held by the African Union of Broadcasters, SuperSport International, and Canal Plus. New World TV and CAF entered into a three-year agreement, granting New World TV the rights to broadcast 13 competitions, including the 2023 and 2025 AFCON tournaments, across 46 countries in the region.
As a result, the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) and other free-to-air stations in the 46 countries will need to sublicense the broadcasting rights through New World TV if they wish to air AFCON and other CAF competitions.
For Nigerian viewers, here are the four main platforms where they can watch AFCON 2023:
1. Nigerian Television Authority (NTA): NTA, the leading television station in Nigeria and the largest network in Africa, will broadcast the 2023 AFCON on its popular NTA Sports 24 channel, which is free-to-air.
2. StarTimes: Subscribers of StarTimes in Nigeria can tune in to their sports channels or stream the live matches of AFCON 2023 on the StarTimes ON mobile app.
3. New World TV: In December 2023, New World TV, based in Togo, secured an exclusive three-year deal with CAF to broadcast all CAF competitions, including AFCON, across 46 African countries until 2025. This provides an option for Nigerian viewers to watch the games.
4. Ziggo Sport: Nigerian football fans residing abroad can enjoy all the tournament matches on Ziggo Sport, a Dutch pay-TV network. Ziggo Sport has obtained the exclusive rights to broadcast the live action of the 2023 AFCON in Ivory Coast and the 2025 AFCON in Morocco.
