The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa released its Draft Sports Broadcasting Services Amendment Regulations 2018, which are "aimed at making big sporting events accessible for free to all South Africans," according to MY BROADBAND. Many high-profile sporting events, especially for popular sports like football, rugby and cricket, are "currently only available to DStv subscribers." To maintain its Supersport monopoly, MultiChoice "pays high fees to get exclusive sports broadcast rights." If ICASA's Draft Sports Broadcasting Services Regulations become law, the regulations "will break MultiChoice's monopoly on the live broadcasting of high-profile sporting events." Although wider access to big sporting events is seen as a "positive development," sporting bodies have "raised concerns about the financial impact these regulations can have." MultiChoice "currently pays very high fees to sporting bodies and unions for exclusive broadcasting rights of their events." MultiChoice is "by far the biggest investor in South African sport," and currently spends around 2B rand ($144M) per year on sports broadcasting rights. If MultiChoice is prohibited from purchasing exclusive sporting rights on high-profile events, "it will spend far less on non-exclusive sports broadcasting." The SABC "will not be able to make up for this shortfall as it is technically bankrupt and does not have money to spend on sports broadcasting rights" (MY BROADBAND, 1/6).
