For years, sport in SA was reserved for weekend escapism; a time to sit back with a fire going, family and friends nearby and let the stresses of the business week fade away. It was about entertainment; the reward for having finished a good business week, not business itself.
But things have changed considerably in the past few years, and sport has become big business, and this decade marks a significant inflection point as sport seems to be experiencing its “start-up” moment, transforming from an industry dominated by centralised federations and broadcasting monopolies into a decentralised, content-rich, culturally unique, tech-enabled, commercially disruptive ecosystem that extends across all levels and codes of sport.
From big-time investors and venture capital opportunists to ambitious entrepreneurs, sport is becoming an industry that you cannot exclude from your investment strategy and business-building aspirations. Let’s explore why.
Sports streaming’s Netflix moment
In 2010, Blockbuster, the video rental chain that once dominated the market with its thousands of physical locations worldwide, went bankrupt. At its height, the chain had 9,000 physical locations globally, with one Blockbuster opening every 17 hours. So what happened? Netflix. The streaming giant recognised the demand for online streaming and offered it as a core component of its business, by offering a monthly subscription model with unlimited rentals. In so doing, Netflix was able to provide greater value and convenience to customers, making it more appealing than Blockbuster’s rental model, essentially leading to Blockbuster’s bankruptcy in less than 10 years.
This case study should serve as a warning for what is coming for the traditional sports broadcasters in SA, mostly DStv and its core channel offering SuperSport. In fact, we can already see the beginning of this, and perhaps the beginning of the downfall of SA’s once dominant pay-TV empire.
According to MultiChoice’s 2024 annual report, DStv lost 400,000 subscribers in a single year, dropping from 8-million to 7.6-million in SA alone. Across all regions, total MultiChoice subscribers fell from 17.3-million to 15.7-million, highlighting a wider structural collapse in the pay-TV model. The financial bleed is severe: R4.1bn in losses in 2024, up from R2.9bn in 2023.
Analyst Simon Brown put it plainly: “MultiChoice is in structural decline. Just like the US cable operators, they’ve been losing subscribers forever and a day.” And he’s right, in the US, pay-TV giants such as Comcast and DirecTV lost 1.6-million subscribers in the second quarter of 2024 alone. In SA though, sport is the last bastion of DStv’s relevance, with 80% of DStv Premium’s R979/month cost attributed to sport.
But the company needs to accelerate its innovation in the sports streaming space, primarily by launching an independent, unbundled online version of SuperSport, separate from DStv, and it needs to be done quickly.
Netflix has already begun buying rights to sports events, with the National Football League (NFL) Christmas games the biggest and most relevant. Leagues such as the National Basketball Association (NBA) have also launched offerings such as NBA League Pass, which gives fans access to live and on-demand NBA games, multiple camera angles, interactive stats and original programming, all from a mobile device, and all for just R139/month.
For SuperSport to come out on top, it will have to be innovative and agile and provide more customer-centric viewing capabilities.
According to Deloitte’s 2023 Sports Insight Report, more than half of fans (56%) say streaming offers a better sports viewing experience than traditional TV, mainly because it’s easier to find (42%), has better video quality (17%), and works across devices (15%). Fans also want added features: 35% want real-time stats and 34% want multiple camera angles. SuperSport still offers its customers a wonderful product, but just like Blockbuster, if it doesn’t meet the vastly different needs of 2025’s customers before its streaming competitors, it might find itself in the same position as Blockbuster — bankrupt and mentioned only in case studies.
Athletes as brands
Athletes are no longer just brand endorsers to promote brands, they are the brands. Michael Jordan revolutionised this idea, turning a Nike deal into a personal empire that has earned him more than $2bn with his Air Jordan (now Jordan) brand. Locally, we see this replicated in ventures such as Bomb Squad Lager, cofounded by Springbok stars Steven Kitshoff and Malcolm Marx, arguably the pioneers of this trend in SA sport. For investors and brands, this signals an opportunity that goes beyond just paying athletes for marketing association, but rather offers equity in exchange for direct, name-based association for product lines.
Deloitte’s Sports Insight research reveals that fans are increasingly watching sport not just for teams, but for the players, and these athletes are shaping culture in real time, more than celebrities or influential individuals in other industries. Marketers and venture capitalists should start tapping into the athlete themselves, collaborating, co-creating, and ultimately investing in the athlete because of what’s happening beyond the field.
The financial evolution of this is heading towards athletes as stock options, probably on a blockchain system, where fans can invest in athletes and receive a return on this investment, with metrics of value attributed to their performances in the game and their value in endorsements.
Rugby’s sleeping giant
When most people think about rugby investment in SA, they default to the professional tier: the Stormers, Sharks, Blue Bulls, Lions and Cheetahs. They think big stadiums, big sponsors, big TV deals. But this focus is missing the real growth story: club rugby. SA’s Western Province Super League A, for example, is home to some of the oldest, most respected rugby institutions on the continent. Clubs such as the University of Cape Town, University of the Western Cape, Stellenbosch University and Villager FC that have stood the test of time, shaped thousands of athletes, and built deep community roots.
These are no longer just weekend hobby teams, in fact they never were. These are legacy brands embedded in the social and sporting fabric of their communities. Yet, many are underfunded and overlooked because most of the broadcasting revenue, still dominated by SuperSport, goes to the unions, and not the local clubs. The clubs are left largely self-funded, despite providing real entertainment value, building future professional stars and attracting strong local crowds.
But the monopoly is breaking, and new agile tech players such as Global Sports Network are now filming and live-streaming club games, making them accessible in a digital world. For the first time, local rugby is reaching digital audiences, and this changes everything. Local clubs are now becoming commercially valuable sports properties, to such an extent that these clubs can attract direct sponsorships, sell merchandising rights, launch equity crowdfunding or private ownership models, and ultimately professionalise and retain talent.
In the English Premier League, what started as community-based clubs turned into a global media and brand empire. And that’s where we are in SA club rugby. We’re moving from a centralised model (where all value sits with unions and national teams) to a decentralised, community-led model where clubs can own their media, monetise their brand and build fan-driven economies. This all contributes to jobs, community-based youth development, content and, ultimately, community-based micro-economies built entirely around sport.
Investors need to explore these opportunities and when they do they should be salivating at the return prospects.
What we’re witnessing is not just a new phase in sport, it’s a renaissance. Just as fintech disrupted banking and edtech challenged traditional education, sport is reinventing itself. Streaming platforms are the new leagues, athletes are the new brands and local clubs are the next era of growth.
And SA, with its deep sporting culture and digital momentum, is poised to lead this transformation. The only question is: who will invest, who will innovate, and who will be left on the sidelines?
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