Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town. The New Year's Test between the Proteas and England from 3-7 January is sold out, leaving local fans reeling. (Photo: Grant Pitcher / Gallo Images) Over the past two days, CSA has faced mounting backlash after tickets for the highly anticipated New Year’s Test between the Proteas and England at Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town sold out within minutes of it being opened to the public.
On Monday, 18 May, CSA had advertised 9.30am as the official release time of tickets for the 2026/27 home summer fixtures.
This included the headline Test series between South Africa (SA) and England – which is also England’s first red-ball series in SA since 2019, with the New Year’s Test, from 3-7 January 2027, clearly being the highest in demand.
CSA posted on social media that the Newlands Test had sold out – before later deleting the message.
According to the Tuesday, 19 May statement, additional tickets are expected to become available “once final pitch allocation requirements have been confirmed”, although the organisation did not specify how many seats were still being withheld from the initial public sale.
Speculation
The whole sequence of events has fuelled widespread speculation that the tickets had already sold out before being released for public sale.
/file/attachments/orphans/GettyImages-1190490074_415866.jpg "Dwaine Pretorius of the Proteas during day 1 of the 1st Test match between South Africa and England in Pretoria on 26 December 2019. (Photo: Lee Warren / Gallo Images Images / Getty)")
The Proteas, who are the reigning World Test Championship victors, will host Australia, Bangladesh and England in a series of bilaterals between August 2026 and January 2027.
Yet, it is only the four days of the New Year’s Test that have sold out. Tickets for the remaining fixtures are still largely available.
So why the New Year’s Test specifically?
It is because it is one of the most commercially attractive fixtures on SA’s cricket calendar.
This, according to Jacques Faul, chief executive of Titans Cricket based in Centurion. Faul also briefly served as acting chief executive of CSA in 2012, and then again for a period between 2019 and 2020.
“Obviously the coastal venue and the overseas market is what is appealing,” said Faul. “It’s just the perfect storm because it’s England, it’s New Year’s and it’s South Africa.”
Faul said he did not believe there was any ill intent behind the sudden depletion of tickets, but acknowledged that lessons needed to be learned.
“It’s both good and bad, isn’t it? We like stadiums that sell out, but you’ve got to be careful that you don’t only grab the money and fail to provide access to South African fans,” he said.
CSA did not provide comment at the time of publication.
A balancing act
It is standard practice for tickets to be pre-allocated to various stakeholders, said Faul.
“[CSA] has to have a certain amount of tickets available for sponsors, Newlands themselves will have certain tickets for their own sponsors,” he said.
England supporter group the Barmy Army were also allocated dedicated sections at Newlands months in advance.
However, ticket distribution details for the third Test remain unclear.
/file/attachments/2985/TL_2410806_919089.jpg "The Proteas celebrate after winning the World Test Championship final over Australia by five wickets at Lord's. (Photo: Paul Harding / Gallo Images)")
Sports business analyst and director of Cash N Sport, Nqobile Ndlovu, estimates it to be about a 50/50 split, but said that secondary resale markets can significantly distort that balance.
Already, tickets for the Newlands Test have appeared on resale websites such as Viagogo at heavily inflated prices.
Another resale platform, eTicketing.co, is currently advertising tickets for the third Test at £200 (R4,464) per person.
British media have similarly reported frustration among English supporters over the inflated resale prices.
“The allocation is usually about 50/50 in terms of local fans versus international,” said Ndlovu. “But there’s no way to keep it 50/50 because when you have tickets being pre-bought and then sold back to the British market, you end up with a situation where it becomes 75/25 or even more.”
According to Faul, concerns about the imbalance of supporters is not new.
“The fear you have is that it becomes an away game, and it’s been bordering on that for a while,” he said.
“Not to sound selfish, but from an administrative standpoint, you want to sell out. That’s what you want to do.
“But I do think we’re proud citizens and we want to cheer our team on. I think the lesson is you’ll have to probably come up with a system where there’s more, general admission tickets available for the public.”
New CSA travel company
In December 2025, CSA also expanded into the travel and hospitality market through a new partnership with Tourvest Destination Management.
The partnership led to the launch of SA Cricket Travel, a new and exclusive CSA travel company designed to maximise revenue from incoming tours.
According to a statement from CSA, the company offers bundle travel and hospitality packages to locals and internationals alike, as well as corporates.
Travel packages include match tickets, accommodation, transport, sightseeing opportunities and exclusive Proteas experiences.
Therefore, SA Cricket Travel would have been allocated tickets to include in these packages, which CSA specified in their statement.
According to CSA, through SA Cricket Travel specifically, 12% of all general access tickets were allocated to international travel packages, while a further 27% were allocated to domestic travel packages.
That would mean nearly 40% of general access tickets were tied to travel packages through the Tourvest Destination Management partnership before public sales opened, which is why fans’ hackles are up.
Up for grabs?
Newlands can accommodate up to 25,000 spectators, which in theory, means 15,250 tickets are still up for grabs. But are they really?
CSA did not disclose how many of the remaining tickets may also have been pre-allocated to other stakeholders mentioned above.
“I don’t, for one moment, think that cricket or [SA Cricket Travel] intended it to go like this,” said Faul. “There’ll be a lot of lessons learned from that, to be honest, and I fully appreciate the public uproar.”
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/TL_2409351-2.jpg "Kagiso Rabada will feature for the Proteas against England. (Photo: Paul Harding / Gallo Images)")
Yet to secure broadcasting rights
According to Ndlovu, incoming tours involving England and India are financially critical for CSA because it generates a substantial portion of the organisation’s annual revenue through broadcasting, tourism and ticket sales.
Two years ago, CSA reported huge profits of R815-million for the 2023/24 financial year, driven primarily by India’s touring of the country.
According to an integrated report, CSA generated R1-billion from broadcast rights during that period, with each match worth about R150-million.
And England, being one of the big three in cricket, is no different, said Ndlovu.
However, CSA has yet to secure a British television rights deal for the England series, possibly putting on it to maximise ticket revenue, said Ndlovu.
This follows the decision by Sky Sports not to renew a long-term agreement that expired last year.
Sky Sports’ apparent reluctance to continue a partnership spanning more than three decades has left CSA seeking alternative broadcast partners so that the tour is televised in the UK.
However, CSA’s chief executive Pholetsi Moseki insists the body will secure a broadcast partner, adding that CSA was not blindsided by Sky Sports’ decision as the broadcaster has gradually stopped buying rights in English outbound tours. DM