Sports marketing agency Integral has acquired free-to-air rights in Nigeria to 200 hours of live content from Tokyo 2020, acquiring the rights from the Infront agency.
Integral has sublicensed the rights to the Nigerian Television Authority, a part-public-owned commercial broadcaster that runs channels across the country. The package includes between six and nine hours of content on each day of the Games.
Infront holds exclusive free-to-air rights to the Olympics across sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa, in a deal covering rights to the Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024 Games. Infront’s deal includes exclusive free-to-air television and radio rights, while the digital rights contained in the agreement are non-exclusive across the 46 territories.
Infront acquired the rights in 2019 after the collapse of sports broadcaster Kwesé Sports, which previously acquired exclusive free-to-air rights to four Olympic Games, from 2018 to 2024, in all sub-Saharan African territories apart from South Africa.
Pay-television broadcaster SuperSport holds exclusive pay-television rights to the Games across English-speaking sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa.
Integral has become an established gateway via which Infront sells free-to-air sports rights to Nigerian broadcasters. The two parties agreed a deal for English Premier League rights in 2019 before the rights were sublicensed to NTA by Integral in 2019.
NTA also held a package of rights to the Rio 2016 Olympics.
Christophe Van Rothem, associate director of media rights at Infront, said: “Our objective is to maximise the reach of the Olympic Games 2020 and this partnership with our trusted partner Integral, will ensure we are able to bring this unique and thrilling event to millions of households in Nigeria.”
Abimbola Ilo, managing director of Integral, said: “Following our partnership for the Premier League free-to-air rights, we are pleased to be working with Infront again to deliver high-quality sports moments to Nigerians. This is an important avenue to showcase the talents and tell the stories of exceptional athletes as they compete on the world’s biggest stage in Tokyo.”
