At the long weekend while looking for something, anything, to watch on Showmax we discovered a new category on the service – Sport.

That’s right Showmax is now offering subscribers the ability to stream sport right from the platform without needing a DStv subscription.

The trouble is that the solution is incredibly limited for the time being as it is being beta-tested.

The inclusion of sport comes at no additional cost at time of writing and Showmax doesn’t appear to have plans of upping the R99 monthly subscription any time soon.

“We’re going to trial a bunch of different sport content while keeping Showmax at the R99 price point, and see how our customers interact with the service,” explained the chief executive officer at MultiChoice Connected Video, Niclas Ekdahl ,upon launching the service.

What’s the score?

Right now the only live sport we’ve seen on Showmax is cricket which makes sense given the Cricket World Cup 2019 is currently on the go.

As for other sports, you are limited to highlights and talk/magazine shows about certain sports. For example, being a fan of Formula 1 I was excited to re-watch the Monaco Grand Prix, but was ultimately disappointed to find that all I could watch was the Qualifying session for that race.

Rugby fans will be able to stream highlights of games though we are yet to see live games on Showmax.

One nice feature is the ability to livestream the various magazine/talk shows hosted by Supersport at the time that they are broadcast on live TV. This includes:

• What a Weekend
• Showcase
• Home
• The Final Whistle
• Phaka
• Inside Edge
• In Touch
• The Dan Nicholl Show
• #borntorugby
• FirstXV

All of the above shows will be available to stream at a later date should you miss the livestream.

What’s the stream quality like?

As this is Showmax, the highest quality you can stream at is 720p which might come as a disappointment to folks using DStv Now which allows you to stream at 1080p.

That having been said, you’re paying a lot more for DStv compared to Showmax so this is an understandable caveat.

Overall, the streaming experience is great but we assumed it would be given that the Showmax platform has improved by leaps and bounds since its initial launch.

Where to now?

Now that we know Showmax is able to stream sports the obvious question for us is when we will be able to stream all sports being broadcast by MultiChoice?

The answer is unclear.

“We’ll be ramping up our live game offerings with everything from selected matches from the best football leagues in Europe to streaming a wide variety of varsity and school sports,” Ekdahl said in a statement at launch.

We’re not exactly sure that we will see all sports being offered on DStv at least not at the current Showmax subscription of R99 per month.

Financially that move makes no sense when MultiChoice still wants folks subscribing to DStv which is still the platform of choice when it comes to watching sport legally.

Perhaps however, we will see Showmax offering limited time streaming for certain sporting events. We honestly have no idea what the plans are for this service and we’re just spit-balling ideas at this stage.

For now though, the availability of sport on Showmax won’t cause you to cancel DStv if your primary reason for subscribing is sport.

That having been said we recommend keeping an eye on your news feeds for additions and improvements to the service.

[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]