The SABC and Boxing South Africa have signed a three-year partnership in a bid to professionalize and revive the sport of boxing in the country.
The deal with BSA and the boxing promoters will be implemented from March next year until 2025, with the goal to bring live boxing tournaments back onto SABC screens.
Currently, the public broadcaster only has a boxing programme on SABC 2 on Friday evenings.
“Boxing remains one of the most popular sports in this country. Boxing fans around this country are a legion. We’ve got a huge boxing audience in this country, which we need to re-engage with, and I think that this step that we are taking now with Boxing South Africa is a large part of that,” said SABC Sport General Manager Gary Rathbone.
All boxing promoters will be treated equally by the public broadcaster, but they will have to satisfy particular criteria for their tournaments to enjoy live coverage on television. Promoters who don’t comply will be overlooked.
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“Equal treatment if you do qualify in terms of the criteria and remember, promoters are not the same – there are development promoters, there are national promoters, and there are international promoters in the country. However, the SABC is a public entity, and as a public entity there has to be that development aspect, so within that criteria every promoter has got an opportunity to apply,” said BSA Director of Operations Mandla Ntlanganiso. “There’s a lot of competition within the sporting fraternity. So, as the boxing fraternity, we need to up the game to make sure that we do compete at the highest echelons. Boxing was once the number two sport in the country and I believe that we can still go to that particular position again and even surpass that.”
The SABC and BSA are now on the lookout to secure sponsorship, as part of the sustainability of boxing in South Africa.
“The corporate must come on board. Here is an opportunity and here is the space to make sure that you do sell your products. Let’s sit around the table and see how we can work together in terms of promoting the sport. This is the sport that is good for social cohesion; this is the sport that is good for nation-building; this is the sport that will be able to take one from a poor background and be able to make one rich,” said Ntlanganiso.
