South Africa will finally get its slice of the T20 pie with the announcement that Cricket South Africa and SuperSport are to become equity partners in a T20 competition set for November 2018.

CSA and SuperSport are teaming up to deliver a world-class T20 competition to a South African and global audience, as the two parties today announced a ground-breaking agreement in terms of which a new company (‘Newco’) will be formed, in which both CSA and SuperSport will be shareholders. CSA will hold the majority share but both shareholders will contribute capital to fund the Newco. SuperSport will broadcast the competition throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the adjacent islands, and provide a broadcast feed to international broadcasters.

The inaugural event will be played during November and December 2018.

Commenting on the agreement, Thabang Moroe (acting CEO of CSA), said that ‘CSA is delighted to announce this equity partnership with our long-term broadcast partners, SuperSport. We have put the problems we experienced with the proposed Global T20 League behind us and look forward to hosting the new competition (which will be named later). This event will create wonderful opportunities for local players (including current Proteas and up-and-coming youngsters) to hone their white-ball skills.’

While not providing specific figures, Moroe labelled the deal as ‘the biggest in the history of South African domestic cricket, which will ensure the welfare of the game in South Africa’.

Gideon Khobane, CEO of SuperSport, also expressed his delight when commenting that ‘CSA has been an outstanding partner of SuperSport’s for many years. This agreement sees our relationship taken to the next level, where we will pool our mutual resources in a partnership which will create high-quality cricket and provide entertaining content for cricket fans locally and broadcast viewers both domestically and globally. To have Proteas and international stars competing together with local talent will improve the quality of T20 cricket produced by South Africa.’

Photo: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP