The South African Broadcasting Corporation has acquired the rights to a host of events held by Athletics South Africa until the end of the 2020 season.
The SABC will produce and broadcast the Cape Town, Two Oceans, Comrades, Nelson Mandela and Soweto marathons as well as a number of track and field, and road running events.
Ian Plaatjes, the SABC’s chief operations officer, said: “As a public-service broadcaster, the SABC plays a pivotal role to facilitate social cohesion by providing a wide range of programming which includes broadcasting sports of national interest.
“This partnership cements our continuous efforts to work with various stakeholders in fulfilling our mandate.”
The SABC’s recent history has been riddled with financial troubles, resulting in the broadcaster being handed a government bailout worth ZAR3.2bn ($215.2m/€195.2m) in October 2019.
At that time, SABC hit out at the “exorbitant” cost of sports rights, saying that ZAR400m of its ZAR483m annual loss for the 2018-19 period was due to its investment in sports rights.