SuperSport caused a disruption by making the official announcement of their acquisition of the 2026 Fifa World Cup broadcast rights during a live match between Magesi FC and Kaizer Chiefs.The stunt was the channel’s unconventional way of announcing it will show all 104 matches of the 48-team quadrennial football festival in Mexico, Canada and the US in June and July but does not signal a change in direction of the production of the Betway Premiership. The merger between Canal+ and MultiChoice has seen the French media company blow winds of change within the local broadcasting conglomerate, raising questions about whether the fusion will adversely affect the beaming of domestic football after DStv’s abrupt ending of its Premier Soccer League headline sponsorship.But Canal+ director of sports content (English and Portuguese speaking Africa) Rendani Ramovha has moved to allay fears that the coalition may bear negative connotations as its broadcast deal with the PSL runs its course. “Our commitment is to make sure that, for as long as possible and for the foreseeable future, our role and involvement are to make sure we have the best product of local football and continue to tell the amazing stories and build local heroes that then go on and play for Bafana and for international clubs,” he said.“There’ll be no negative bearing, and I think in a lot of cases there’ll be a lot of enhancements … It will just be for the betterment of the product.”One of the few takeouts post the Canal+ merger is we’ve realised that Africa is not one country. A big part of our stunt was to schedule the Idris campaign throughout Africa. So what you saw someone in Tanzania was seeing, someone in Nigeria, in Angola etc— Rendani Ramovha, Canal+ director of sports contentIn what way, though? “If you look at the work we’re doing on localisation and customisation on the production side, a lot of those insights and learnings we’re then taking and enhancing production on the ground,” said Ramovha. “We’re testing things like remote productions. That means that you don’t have an outside broadcast van on site. You’ve got an OB van based in Randburg, but then you’ll be able to run a fully fledged production. That minimises our production costs… by using more technology and different staff facilities from the head office to make sure you can still enhance the product. “Some of the production enhancements we’ve brought include a buggy cam [a remotely controlled, all-terrain camera vehicle}. We’re investing heavily to put on a world-class event every single time.”Ramovha said the announcement of the World Cup, which featured actor Idris Elba, “went live across multiple African countries because we play a big role in terms of shaping narratives in sport across Africa”. “It was our live World Cup announcement. One of the few takeouts post the Canal+ merger is we’ve realised that Africa is not one country. A big part of our stunt was to schedule the Idris campaign throughout Africa. So what you saw someone in Tanzania was seeing, someone in Nigeria, in Angola etc.“Relating specifically to the Chiefs match, it was no disrespect to Chiefs. When you’re scheduling for millions of people across Africa, you don’t always get it right.”SuperSport will be broadcasting all 104 World Cup matches on DStv and GOtv plaforms. One of the key things was for us to make sure we come up with a disruptive and innovative announcement— RamovhaChiefs went on to win 4-1 for a five-match winning run they last achieved in 2019-20 when they won eight on the trot. “I’ve seen on social media people are saying Idris is now a Kaizer Chiefs lucky charm. I’ve seen a few memes of Idris in a Chiefs shirt,” he said. “So again, SuperSport will be broadcasting all 104 World Cup matches on DStv and GOtv plaforms. One of the key things was for us to make sure we come up with a disruptive and innovative announcement.“What we are realising, though, is that there’s a shift in content, where non-live [the ability to draw audiences to the live matches] is becoming important or just as important as live. We’re calling it a big part of our strategy, owning conversations [from] Monday to matchdays. “Talkability and share of voice need to be on an all-time high all the time. So this announcement was geared at driving conversation, being disruptive, and innovative to make sure that we can drive talkability.”Awareness of the number of competitors entering the market necessitated them “to look at ourselves in terms of how we show up”, Ramovha added.“Talent is going to be a key cornerstone for us across Africa to be customer-facing; it’s going to be customer first. One of the biggest [pieces of] feedback Canal+ gave was to say, you can’t just have an amazing product and put it on screen … We’ll cater to five of our clusters with localisation, customisation in countries, and production crews following some of the different teams, Bafana Bafana, Ghana, etc, in the US, Mexico and Canada.”Africa will have 10 teams for the first time at the global event. “It’s bigger, it’s better, it’s 10 African countries. Previously it felt like Africa was watching the World Cup, but now it feels like Africa is participating... and it will be Africa against the world. We’re hoping that outside of participating we’re going to have one or two going far in the tournament.”countries at WC (nolo)