Johannesburg - With a little over two weeks before the 27th edition of the Soweto Marathon is run in the world famous township, organisers are surprisingly still working frantically to try and secure a broadcast deal.
Sello Khunou, the chairperson of the Soweto Marathon Trust, said on Tuesday that they are currently in negotiation with the SABC to televise the People’s Race.
This in spite of the fact that the sport's governing body, Athletics South Africa, announced amid much fanfare that they had clinched a broadcast deal with pay-channel SuperSport that “would see all the major running events being shown live”.
Speaking to the media out on the famed Vilakazi Street in front of the late archbishop Desmond Tutu’s house during the race’s route reconnaissance, Khunou would not be drawn into discussing the ASA broadcast deal.
“We are still in discussions on that particular score of the TV broadcast. We are in discussion with the SABC and until we have concluded an agreement, it would be detrimental for us to be saying anything,” was all Khunou was prepared to say.
On the contrary, ASA president James Moloi says that races such as the Soweto Marathon fall under their ambit and are part of their deal with SuperSport.
“The constitution says ASA has the full rights to broadcasting races and the Soweto Marathon is one of those. We have sent a letter to our affiliate CGA (Central Gauteng Athletics) reminding them of the fact that we have a broadcast deal with SuperSport and that they should make the Soweto Marathon aware of this,” Moloi said.
Given that the Soweto Marathon Trust are currently in talks with the SABC, it could well be that the famous race and ASA could well be a collision course.
It would appear that ASA’s decision to sign the broadcast deal with SuperSport was not properly communicated if at all to the affected race organisers who have previously done their own negotiating for broadcasting.
There have been concerns raised from some quarters in the running community that there was no transparency from ASA with regards to the broadcast contract, with many lamenting the fact that the value of the deal was not made public – or at least communicated to the clubs.
ASA though will no doubt retort that they deal with their affiliates – such as CGA – and not directly with clubs.
Whatever the case, there is very little time left for the parties to secure the broadcast deal for one of SA’s most popular races, which continues to be without a title sponsor.
Khunou said during the interview that “finding a headline sponsor after the Covid-19 pandemic is extremely difficult”.
“All the companies are looking after their core business now and the side things they will see after they’ve taken care of their bottom line. So, Covid really damaged us, we are not being able to find a headline sponsor,” Khunou said.
The chairperson said though that they are pleased with the number of entries they have received and said they are anticipating to have about 20 000 runners converging at the FNB Stadium precinct on 6 November to participate in the full marathon, the half marathon as well as the 10km races.
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