Football fanatics have every reason to smile after Africa’s biggest TV operator, Showmax launched a live sports streaming service in Kenya and Nigeria.
This means everyone has can now comfortably watch live football matches from the UK(Barclays Premier League), Italy(Seria A) Spain(La Liga) and South Africa.
Sports, especially soccer, is a major drawcard for television viewership globally, but especially in football-mad Africa. And now, they can watch live on their mobile phones too.
The MultiChoice Group-owned streaming video provider said Showmax Pro package, which will offer both video-on-demand entertainment programming and live-streamed sports from SuperSport, will also include music channels and news.
Showmax Pro in Kenya will go for Sh2,100 per month for the full service or Sh1,050 for a mobile-only offering.
“Showmax Pro, which bundles the existing Showmax entertainment service with music channels, news and live sport streaming from SuperSport, features all Premier League, Serie A, La Liga and PSL games, as well as a wide range of other live sports events,” the company said.
IAAF Athletics, professional boxing and the world’s biggest marathons will also be featured.
“This is the biggest thing we’ve done at Showmax in the five years since we first launched. Africa is an incredibly diverse continent, so offering a single monolithic product may not be the best solution. Our approach is to standardize where we can and tailor where we need to. That’s why you’ll see different local content on Showmax in Nigeria than you will in Kenya, and South Africa’s content is different again. Payment methods and partnerships have to be localized, but meanwhile, the need for a mobile-only option and the desire for great international sporting content is universal,” Niclas Ekdahl, CEO of the Connected Video division of MultiChoice told Forbes.
The best thing is that Showmax has been built to optimize for slow internet.
In June 2019, Showmax began testing live-streamed sports on its platform, and the new Showmax Pro service is based on the results of this, it said.
Niclas Ekdahl, CEO of the Connected Video division of MultiChoice said that payment methods and partnerships have to be localised, but meanwhile, the need for a mobile-only option and the desire for great international sporting content is universal.
He added that the coverage across sub-Saharan Africa is expected to be completed within six to eight weeks.
