Massive changes have ensued at SuperSport TV as two senior officials have left the private broadcaster just days after the conclusion of the Africa Cup of Nations that ended last weekend in Ivory Coast.
According to high-ranking sources – Maxwell Tshunungwa, Executive Director, and Chief Executive Officer, Tex Teixeria have parted ways with the pay channel company.
Docky Dockrat, who joined SuperSport in 2006 as Content Editor of the Update Channel, which has since been transformed into the continent’s leading news and highlights channel, SuperSport Blitz, has been promoted to one of the positions.
Tshunungwa is leaving the company at the end of next month due to health reasons, while Texeira, who is also doing so next month, is leaving the country completely to be with family in Australia.
However, according to a high-ranking source, the door is open for Tshunungwa to come back as a freelancer until he feels better.
“Max and Tex are out of SuperSport,” a source told iDiski Times.
“Docky Docrat has been promoted.”
However, SuperSport TV has refused to comment about these departures.
It was reported that their departures were due to the AFCON rights broadcast debacle, which saw SuperSport only confirming they’d secured rights days before the tournament started last month. Still, a high-ranking source said that was not the case but for health and family reasons in their departures.
SuperSport was thrown into a huge storm after it was revealed late last year that they were not able to secure AFCON rights through its sister company – MultiChoice. That brought huge criticism to the giants’ broadcaster on social media, especially with customers from Nigeria and Ghana where the company has a huge footprint.
Customers, along with those in South Africa, threatened to cut their subscriptions before SuperSport reversed the decision to secure the rights.
Dockrat, who is stepping up to fill one of the positions, was previously roped in because he had a wealth of varied media experience, having started in radio. He introduced sports bulletins to Lotus FM and anchored their first sports show, while at Talk Radio 702, he was sports editor and anchor on the John Robbie show.
Online, he launched South Africa’s first Bollywood website in 1998 and in the print medium he was Bollywood columnist for the Sunday Times until 2011.
Dockrat is intrigued by the business of sports television, while constantly being amazed by the theatre of sport and its ability to dish up the broadest range of emotions – sometimes in just a single broadcast.
The now-leaving Teixeira was steeped in television sport, having started at SuperSport in the mid-1990s, championing innovation in the production field.
Having begun as an editor, culminating in his appointment as Head of Channels, Tex moved offshore in 2012, taking up the role of SKY TVs Head of Production before concluding his stay in New Zealand as Director of Live Sports Innovation and Community Engagement.
Texeira brought 25 years of sports broadcast experience to his role as Chief Executive Officer, which he assumed in 2023.
He specialized in content strategy and acquisition, programming and production, leading large teams, and managing strategic relationships with rights holders, federations, and suppliers across multiple territories.
His qualifications include completing the Naspers Harvard Business School Programme and the New Managers Programme at Wits Business School. Another high-ranking source however said he was leaving the company because he couldn’t fulfill what he was brought for.
