SuperSport to trial Facebook for live broadcast

Popular South African sports channel family SuperSport has announced that it will Thursday broadcast its first live TV event on Facebook.

This will be the broadcast of the Varsity Football final between TUT and UJ taking place in Pretoria. This move aims to encourage more people to discover the tournament, and perhaps appeal to younger audiences who don’t have access to DStv.

The move also depicts SuperSport’s renewed interest in social media as an alternative broadcast scheme. The channel also recently began broadcasting eSports tournaments on its bouquet as well.

According to the press release, “this is a first for SuperSport, making TV content available for free on SuperSport’s Football Facebook page, one of the biggest on the continent”.

It’s the first time that SuperSport will use Facebook as a live broadcast medium

“SuperSport has built a massive community of engaged sport fans and we are excited by the possibilities of this step,” explains Gideon Khobane, chief executive of SuperSport.

“The digital broadcast landscape is fast changing, not least in the voracious consumption of video. We hope this appeals to people on the move and unable to watch on the traditional television platform.”

The match will be broadcast on Thursday, 22 September 2016, at 5.15pm. It can be watched over on SuperSport’s Football Facebook page for those in sub-Saharan Africa.