Sub-Saharan African pay-television broadcaster SuperSport will broadcast Formula One motor racing until 2022 after agreeing a three-year renewal with the sport’s commercial arm, Formula One Management, SportBusiness understands.
As part of the deal, F1 will also launch F1 TV Pro, the property’s premium OTT package, across the region.
SuperSport has been the series’ English-language broadcast rights-holder in Sub-Saharan Africa for several years and the renewal was understood to have been agreed earlier this year.
Formula 1 is not thought to have a French-language broadcaster in Sub-Saharan Africa in place yet as pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus Afrique has not renewed its agreement.
The SuperSport deal was signed shortly before the originally scheduled start of the 2020 season. The 2020 campaign has, like other leading sports events, been disrupted by the global Covid-19 pandemic.
The season is set to commence on July 3 with the Austrian Grand Prix. It was announced this morning that the 2020 races in Singapore, Japan, and Azerbaijan have been cancelled.
FOM has made it clear that it will not be opening up additional free-to-air coverage of the 2020 season when it resumes without fans on-site.
A number of broadcasters have already renewed their deals with FOM. These have included major agreements struck in markets such as in Canada (with TSN), France (with Canal Plus) and across the Nordics (with the Nordic Entertainment Group).