Matthew Pearce

Matthew Pearce is a Sports Commentator was born, raised and educated in Cape Town. After school, he studied at the University of Cape Town towards a degree in Industrial Psychology and a post-graduate diploma in Marketing through the Business Science Faculty.

During his time at university, he was asked by a friend to help him to do some freelance reporting for the local newspapers on rugby, cricket and golf and he eventually became the official golf writer for the Cape Times newspaper whilst he was still in university.

Through his association with the Cape Times, Matthew Pearce picked up some occasional freelance radio reporting slots and so, a passion for sports media – and broadcasting, in particular – was born.

Matthew did his first live rugby commentary on SABC radio on his 22nd birthday during his mid-year exams in his final year of his degree; a clear indication of the direction in which his career would head in the future.

Having completed his studies, he got a sales and marketing job which lasted all of three months before he was offered the editorship of Golf Digest magazine, which was to be launched under the license from the New York Times publishing group.

Eighteen months later, he became the youngest editor of SA Sports Illustrated at the age of twenty-six – a position which he held for over five years.

Since then, Matthew Pearce has held various business positions and he has continued with his freelance broadcasting in the hope that it may turn into something more significant.

In 2005, after almost seven years of pestering, he was given the opportunity to commentate on a rugby match for SuperSport and the rest, as they say, was history.

A little more than a year later, Matthew called his first Springbok test match for SuperSport and he has commentated on 60 test matches since.

He anchored the SuperSport coverage at the Rugby World Cup 2011 in New Zealand. Matthew is set to be commentating on 2015’s World Cup too.

He is a three-time SAB Sports Media Award winner, including the 2014 award for ‘TV Sports Commentator of the Year’.

He is also a three-time winner of the SASOL Award for Rugby Broadcasting.

Matthew Pearce interest in business has found him a home at a Cape Town-based boutique fund manager called Skybound Capital, where he works on communication and business development and he considers himself extremely fortunate to be living the dream and simultaneously pursuing two great passions.