Canal+ Centralises Control of SuperSport’s Sports Rights in Paris

MultiChoice’s new controlling shareholder, Canal+, has taken away SuperSport’s authority to decide which sports rights to buy, with those calls now made at its head office in Paris.

Veteran broadcasting journalist Thinus Ferreira told 702 that the move is tied to Canal+’s drive to cut spending. The company has already told investors it needs to reduce costs, but it cannot retrench staff for the next three years, leaving limited room to manoeuvre.

“They are looking at cutting back on costs. One of the things they are doing is they’ve taken away all of the acquisition power from SuperSport,” Ferreira said. “Our new European masters are deciding for us which sports they will buy or not, directly from Paris in France, where Canal+’s head office is.”

Ferreira said the chief content officer at Canal+ now decides which sports rights SuperSport will pursue.

DStv Subscribers Feel the Impact

DStv subscribers are already seeing the effect. For the first time in decades, the Winter Olympic Games are not available on the platform.

“It’s because Canal+ has decided not to buy it, like the World Darts Championships and other things,” Ferreira said.

Streaming Giants Tighten the Pressure

In January 2026, Ferreira told MyBroadband it is only a matter of time before global streaming platforms with far larger budgets take more sports away from SuperSport.

He said DStv’s position in South African sports broadcasting is under strain.

“Streamers like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and others have more money to spend on content and to acquire more content,” he said. “It is just a matter of time before they take more sports — the lifeblood of traditional pay-TV — from it.”

Ferreira argued that SuperSport has dominated premium sports rights not because the SABC or e.tv lacked interest, but because the rights were too expensive.

“SuperSport, therefore, gobbles it up. But a bigger fish is moving up from the depths and will start snapping up what SuperSport used to feed on itself,” he said.

According to Ferreira, global streamers can bid at levels Canal+ and SuperSport may struggle to match.

“WWE already jumped to Netflix. In Australia, the English Premier League moved from traditional pay-TV to a streamer, along with a lot of rugby, and basically all cricket to Amazon Prime Video,” he said.

“So in that sense, DStv stands to be eclipsed at some point in time, in the way that DStv eclipsed the SABC.”

Canal+ has also delayed signing off on production contracts for local content on DStv’s kykNET and Mzansi Magic channels. Sources familiar with the situation told Ferreira that numerous unsigned agreements for local series and soap operas are sitting at Canal+’s headquarters awaiting approval.