Supersport launches football channel for Africa

The SuperSport 3 schedule also includes live coverage of English Nationwide League, Coca-Cola Champions League and Spanish League matches and weekly highlights of Italian and Argentine first-league fixtures.

"The decision to introduce a dedicated soccer channel for Africa followed the announcement that South Africa will host the 2010 World Cup tournament," says SuperSport CEO, Heinrich Enslin. SuperSport was the official media supplier for South Africa's 2010 World Cup bid and its contribution to the successful campaign was widely acknowledged.

SuperSport announced earlier this year that it had acquired the rights to broadcast live coverage of more than a thousand FA Premier League matches during the next three English seasons. Enslin says it made sense to broadcast most of the fixtures on one channel.

Fixtures have been scheduled to start at different times, with only two matches being played at the same time on most Saturdays. Delayed coverage of matches, highlights packages, magazine programmes and news slots from the UK and Europe, including all the latest results, will be shown in between live match coverage.

SuperSport will also show soccer on other DStv channels because some important fixtures will be played simultaneously. Boxing, athletics and other sports that have been broadcast mostly on SuperSport 3 will now be shown on other SuperSport channels.

"We know of only one other 24-hour soccer channel in the world, which is in South America," says Enslin. "Africa is an important member of the world-wide football family and we feel that SuperSport 3 will help make the continent a super-power in the most popular sport on earth."

To celebrate the launch of the new soccer channel, Oracle Airtime Sales is offering several special packages with substantial discounts off the usual rate card rate. Advertise your brand in Africa - contact Fahmeeda Cassim-Surtee on Tel: (011) 329 5036.