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- The missed AFCON opportunity, regulation in Brazil, and Mutlichoice go all-in on betting
The missed AFCON opportunity, regulation in Brazil, and Mutlichoice go all-in on betting
Plus: The first oyinbo dambe fighter
James Torvaney
January 12, 2024
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🗞️ THE BIG STORY
This Saturday, Africa’s flagship football tournament kicks off in Abidjan.
There has been a flurry of last-minute broadcast deals, including will-they-won’t-they dance between CAF and SuperSport (spoiler: they will).
In this newsletter we round this up and ask a slightly different question – is AFCON less than it could be?
👀 ALSO THIS WEEK…
🔮 SportsPro tips African sports to boom in 2024.
🇶🇦 The AFC Asian Cup kicks off in Qatar. Two regions are set to dominate both on and off the pitch.
🇧🇷 Brazil passed landmark legislation that could make the country one of the world’s biggest betting markets.
🎰 Africa’s largest sports broadcaster launched its own betting brand in an attempt to stem its mounting financial losses.
🥊 A Liverpudlian has traveled to Nigeria to become the first ‘oyinbo’ (white man) to compete in the brutal Nigerian martial art of Dambe.
🌍 AFRICA FTW!
SportsPro has recognised Africa in its list of sports trends for 2024.
👀 Watch this space…
😮💨 AND… BREATHE
A lot happened this week in African football – notably Multichoice’s flip-flopping on whether they would air AFCON.
There was also a flurry of other late broadcasting deals, including with StarTimes, Sky Sports, and the BBC.
In the end, viewers are left with more viewing options than ever before, and that is a good thing.
But the fact that all this is happening in the final week before kick-off hints at a lack of planning and strategic direction.
💰 MISSED OPPORTUNITIES?
Many see the tournament as a missed opportunity – for CAF, brands, and the sports industry as a whole.
AFCON is the flagship tournament for the world’s most football-mad continent.
With a probable audience of close to 1 billion, the tournament will feature some of the best footballers in the world, including Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah, and Victor Osimhen.
Amidst all the fuss over linear broadcast TV deals, it feels like we are obfuscating the wider point – this could have been so much more.
📺 BROADCAST DISRUPTION
With its young, mobile-first, audience, Africa could be an interesting (and low-cost) testing ground for some of the big ideas being talked about by rights holders globally - notably D2C and social media-led coverage.
For all Multichoice’s pre-eminence, it only has around 23 million pay TV subscribers across Africa – Mobile network operator MTN has 289 million.
Pay TV has low penetration in Africa
The numbers of people betting online, or using social video apps such as TikTok or Instagram, are also orders of magnitude higher than those that pay for TV.
This looks like a market ripe for disruption.
🌍 THE DIASPORA OPPORTUNITY
Given the over 150 million African diaspora around the world, and the growing popularity of African culture, we’ve seen sadly few international brand campaigns around AFCON.
Sold-out arenas by the likes of Davido, Burna Boy, and Rema, demonstrate the interest in African culture more broadly, and the huge success of Nike’s 2018 Super Eagles jersey show how sports can successfully tap into this momentum.
🤔 An opportunity, perhaps?
The streets will never forget this kit
📗 REQUIRED READING
Check out Africa Sports Unified’s excellent AFCON guide, which covers everything from commercial partners to teams’ social media followings.
Click to download the report
🏆 BIG IN JAPAN?
Asia also kicks off its continental showpiece this weekend, and one could argue the region offers a similarly untapped opportunity.
South and South East Asia have vast populations who are extremely passionate football fans. But whilst fans watch EPL and LaLiga in their millions, interest in the national teams is low.
From the Nielson 2022 World Football Report
Instead, the AFC Asian Cup is dominated by the Middle East, South Korea and Japan, who dominate on the field (Australia is the only other nation to have won the trophy), commercially (almost all the corporate sponsors), and in terms of hosting (by 2027, the Middle East will have hosted 4 out of 5 editions).
Asia is football mad, but that demand is not being fully exploited.
🇧🇷 THE BEAUTIFUL… BET?
Brazil president Lula signed the country’s long-awaited sports betting bill into law this month, meaning the sector is now regulated and can be taxed.
Whilst there are still many open questions, many investors see this as a key step for turning Brazil into one of the biggest betting markets in the world – the country already generates substantially more online betting traffic than any other country (according to Similarweb).
It’s also significant for the country’s sports industry – every single top-flight football team in Brazil has a betting sponsor, and those commercial revenues may come in handy in funding the brave new future of Brazilian club football.
🎲 MULTICHOICE ROLL THE DICE
Sub Saharan Africa’s largest sports broadcaster formally launched SuperSportBet in South Africa on 5th January.
Parent company Multichoice have posted multiple periods of big losses and are bleeding pay TV subscribers.
The group is turning to sports betting in an attempt to convert its roughly 23 million subscribers into a profitable business.
And whilst sports betting is essentially keeping sports broadcasting afloat in Africa, the plan is not without risks – Multichoice invested in Nigerian bookmaker BetKing at a valuation of $1Bn in 2021, but has seen the company withdraw from three of its four markets, and its valuation plummet.
🥊 DAMBE GOES INTERNATIONAL
Luke Leyland, a boxer from Liverpool, is in Katsina in Northern Nigeria with the African Warriors Fighting Championship.
He is the first known British person to compete in Dambe – a traditional and brutal-looking Nigerian martial art.
Few are giving him much hope of winning, but early signs suggest the affection between Leyland and the local Dambe community is mutual.
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Hit me up if you have any interesting scoops, or want to chat sports business.
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