The battle over soccer television rights was settled on Thursday in an agreement in which public broadcaster SABC will screen 143 Premier Soccer League matches, reports News24
SuperSport will screen 165 matches.
The agreement between the Premier Soccer League (PSL), pay channel SuperSport and the public broadcaster gives the SABC exclusive screening rights to 110 matches, the three parties said in a joint statement.
The broadcaster will also screen 33 games concurrently with SuperSport.
Meanwhile, SuperSport will exclusively screen more than 100 games.
SABC CEO Dali Mpofu said matches on the broadcaster's free-to-air channels would include those involving leading PSL teams, quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals of PSL competitions and the Mvela Golden League's PSL promotion-regulation play-off matches.
PSL chairperson Irvin Khoza said he was pleased that the matter had been resolved.
"The PSL now ensures that more than double the number of matches, that were previously broadcast will now be shown on television."
The deal with SuperSport had taken the PSL into the top 15 ranked leagues in the world in regard to commercial broadcast deals, he said.
SuperSport CEO Imtiaz Patel said the agreement was "in the best interests of the soccer-loving South African public".
The pay-to-air channel had sold the broadcast rights to the SABC for the matches the public broadcaster would screen, said SuperSport spokesperson Guy Hawthorne.
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