Sub-Saharan African pay-television broadcaster StarTimes has acquired the non-exclusive rights to the Extreme E racing series across the region.
The deal will cover the three-year cycle spanning the 2021, 2022 and 2023 seasons and will kick off early next year when the competition resumes following the shutdown of the 2020 season due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The rights are non-exclusive across these territories and will be shared with global sports broadcaster ESPN, which will also broadcast Extreme E from 2021.
ESPN’s six linear channels are also carried on StarTimes platform after the pair reached a carriage agreement in February.
StarTimes will broadcast Extreme E in over 30 sub-Saharan African nations with full language rights encompassing English, French, Portuguese and other local languages. Extreme E has a strategy of agreeing as many non-exclusive deals as possible in order to boost the property’s exposure.
Extreme E chief marketing officer Ali Russell said: “This broadcast partnership with StarTimes is really important for helping to share our messages across Africa, which is an integral location to the series as Senegal’s Lac Rose plays host to our Ocean stage.”
Recent deals have also seen the rights-holder reach an agreement across Europe with international media group Discovery, with public service broadcaster the BBC in the UK and with Chinese digital media platform China Sports.