ESPN, Econet Media’s Kwese Pact Sports Deal For Africa
ESPN and Kwese, part of South Africa’s Econet Media, have pacted a multi-year distribution and co-production agreement targeting Sub-Saharan Africa’s huge and hugely growing mobile market.
Announced Tuesday, the Sportel-Kwese deal kicks off in early 2017 with the launch of an ESPN channel in 19 countries, which will be exclusive to Kwese, ESPN said inna sytatement.
ESPN and Kwese will also launch African editions of ESPN’s website, KweseESPN.com and a joint mobile app, yoking ESPN’s global sports coverage with African sports new and analysis from Kwese. As part of the deal, “thousands” of hours of ESPN content will be licensed to Kwese and appear on ESPN and Kwese Sports channels, a company statement said.
ESPN will also produce daily SportsCenter updates for Africa.
The deal sees Kwese adding NCAA American football and basketball to existing rights for the NFL, NHL and NBA. That will make it “the game of American sports in Africa,” the statement said.
“ESPN’s focus around the world is simple: To serve sports fans. This long-term collaboration across television and digital media will do just that — serve millions of sports fans across Africa with exceptional products, content and coverage,” said Russell Wolff, EVP and managing director, ESPN International.
Operating a satellite-delivered free to air channel, which features English Premiere League soccer and Formula One and focusing on sports, “Kwese’s primary aim historically has been to target Africa’s mobile market,” said Richard Broughton, at Ampere Analysis.
Its mid-term aim is to convert of free-of-charge TV online video service into a pay proposition, Broughton added, saying that mobile payments can be billed via an app store or operator.
There were over half a billion mobile contracts at the end of 2015 in Sub-Saharan Africa. But this number has now increased to roughly 560m by Amere Analysis estimates.
“It’s a huge potential market to be targeting, though the development of online video services has lagged a number of year behind in Sub-Sahara Africa, for infrastructure and payment reasons. There’s very limited fixed broadband, mobile networks are very often capacity-constained,” Broughton said.
The ESPN-Kwese app, in this content, could be a tipping point. “This is an indication that the market for online video is reaching a point where large traditional media companies such as ESPN can see the opportunities in the region,” he concluded.
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