SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
IMG has won the exclusive rights to distribute the international media rights for the Confédération Africaine de Football’s (CAF) events in over 85 countries.
The deal spans from 2023-2025 and will see the global sports, events and representation company manage the broadcast deals for the next two editions of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), as well as the tournament’s qualifiers.
Robyn Cox, VP & Managing Director, Africa, for IMG’s media business, commented: “The TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations is the biggest event on the African Continent and one of football’s most watched competitions.”
The next two AFCON tournaments are the TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations Côte d’Ivoire 2023 and the CAF Africa Cup of Nations Morocco 2025.
“We’re looking forward to expanding our partnership with CAF to help unlock greater value from its media rights, grow the competition’s global audiences and enhance fans’ viewing experience,” Cox added.
The deal however does exclude territories in the MENA region, selected areas and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Meanwhile, the partnership also strengthens IMG’s links with CAF, having recently been appointed as the federation’s global sponsorship agency through 2025, securing a deal with Puma to supply the official match ball for CAF-organised tournaments.
IMG also provides marketing intelligence, data analysis and consultancy services to support CAF in the development of its new commercial sponsorship strategy.
Last week, IMG published its 2024 Digital Trends report, which expressed how machine learning will have the ‘most immediate and profound impact’ on sports rights holders in 2024, with benefits yet to be realised across content creation, customer service and predictive analytics for sales and marketing.
“Sports will need to stay across advances in motion capture and 3D modelling that could see sports events rendered in new environments: rights holders that lead the market in 2030 will be the ones testing and learning in 2024,” the group summarised.
