FA Cup returns to SABC screens

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) on Thursday announced the acquisition of The Emirates FA Cup broadcast rights, through its sports division, SABC Sport.

The Emirates FA Cup, the oldest club cup competition in the world, makes its return to the SABC after the acquisition of the Free to Air broadcast rights was concluded earlier on Thursday.

The rights are for the remaining 2019/2020 Emirates FA Cup season, for the quarterfinals, semi-finals and the final. This milestone broadcast deal is also inclusive of the next season’s full Emirates FA Cup offering of 17 live matches and the Community Shield, which will kick-off the 2020/2021 Premier League season between the winners of the FA Cup and the current season of the Premier League.

SABC Sport General Manager Gary Rathbone asserted, “This is a breakthrough deal for SABC Sport. This acquisition is at the back of some of SABC’s key strategic turnaround objectives of making sound business decisions and financially viable partnerships. Secondly, the world over has a keen interest in English football content which drives a sizable audience share and is a very attractive proposition to our commercial partners”.

He added that, “This also shows that SABC Sport can do more for its audiences by going the extra mile to bring them the world’s most famous club competition. Making great sport available to all South Africans is what the SABC is all about, and we believe that the romance and glory of this great cup competition, featuring some of the most iconic teams in world football, does exactly that”.

The Free to Air package for this season’s FA Cup will allow SABC Sport to broadcast three-quarter final matches of which two will be live and one delayed this coming weekend. Both the semi-final matches and the Final will be played at Wembley Stadium, the home of football, and be available to football fans live on SABC 3.

In the 2020/2021 FA Cup season, there will be a total of 18 live matches broadcast live on SABC 3. The matches broadcast on the SABC will start from the 5^th Round proper and continue right up until the final match at Wembley Stadium in 2021.

Preceding the live kick-off of all the matches on SABC 3, there will be a 30 minutes studio build-up featuring a panel of experts to offer pre-match analysis as well as a 30 minute wrap up, looking at highlights and key moments of the matches.

Over and above that, there will also be an FA Cup highlights show featuring all the matches of the previous round that will be broadcast every week after each round of the competition.

All six Emirates FA Cup matches will be broadcast on SABC 3 as per the schedule below:

Quarterfinals:

• Saturday, 27^th June – Norwich City vs Manchester United at 23h30 delayed on SABC 3
• Sunday, 28^th June – Sheffield United vs Arsenal at 14h00 live on SABC 3
• Sunday, 28^th June – Leicester City vs Chelsea at 17h00 live on SABC 3

Semifinals:

• Saturday, 18^th July – teams TBC – Wembley Stadium live on SABC 3
• Sunday, 19^th July – teams TBC – Wembley Stadium live on SABC 3

Final:

• Saturday, 01^st August – teams TBC – Wembley Stadium live on SABC 3

The FA Cup is back on #SABC!#MSW pic.twitter.com/8bzIYGbDG7

— Marawa Sport Worldwide (@MarawaSportShow) June 25, 2020