Financial realities hitting golf and cricket

Ignoring the current economic woes in South Africa would be extremely unwise for sporting bodies and it’s interesting to note how the two big summer sports of cricket and golf have approached the fiscal doldrums we currently find ourselves in, even though we have officially come out of the recession.

The Sunshine Tour has cut back considerably on the number of co-sanctioned tournaments they host with the European Tour, with the Alfred Dunhill Championship concluding over the weekend at Leopard Creek being the last in the trio of big-money events that includes the Nedbank Golf Challenge and the South African Open. The Mauritius Open, tri-sanctioned with the Asian Tour, carries €1 million of prize money and is one of six tournaments held in neighbouring countries like Zambia, Zimbabwe and Swaziland.

At the height of the co-sanctioning agreement with the Eu- ropean Tour, the Sunshine Tour co-hosted seven tournaments – the Nedbank Golf Challenge, the Africa Open, The Alfred Dunhill Championship, the Joburg Open, the Nelson Mandela Championship, the Tshwane Open and the South African Open, while the Volvo Golf Champions, for all the winners from the previous season, was also held in South Africa on three occasions between 20122014.

The Joburg, Tshwane, Nelson Mandela and Africa events have all fallen by the wayside as the Sunshine Tour bows to the inevitable in terms of the problems they face securing mega-sponsorships and also the vital support of local municipalities.

Putting on one of these co-sanctioned events costs around R50 million and that sort of money is hard to come by – particularly since the rise of the Democratic Alliance in Gauteng, with the new political rulers pulling the plug on many sporting investments @KenBorland made by the previous ANC incumbents, which is understandable if one considers all the socio-economic problems their residents face. The Joburg Open, which has been folded into the SA Open, and the Tshwane Open, has gone the same way as a massive upgrade of the Randburg Hockey Stadium which had been approved by the previous administration.

The Sunshine Tour is still working extremely hard, however, to provide their members with as many tournaments as possible in which to earn their livelihood. The 2018/19 season takes in 26 events with prize money of more than R90 million. Negotiations are also underway with sponsors for the addition of another tournament from February 21 in Limpopo.

Cricket South Africa have also been providing their main assets – the players – with a lot more opportunity to earn money through the Mzansi Super League, which heads for its conclusion this weekend with increasing momentum.

But the difference between cricket and golf is that Cricket South Africa are going to be faced with an expenses bill that, according to informed sources, could come close to the R90 million prize money figure of the Sunshine Tour.

It’s going to take patience in deciding the fortunes of the Mzansi Super League, remembering of course that the Indian Premier League struggled for the first couple of years before exploding into the international cricket firmament like a nuclear bomb.

A player like former Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni played a massive role in popularising the IPL brand and he is the calibre of player CSA should be trying to bring over to play in the MSL. Of course, that can probably only happen once he has retired because the BCCI is understandably dead against their own players going overseas to help rival leagues.

But the MSL has to attract bigger-name international players, larger crowds, better TV deals and a title sponsor soon, before CSA paints itself into a corner with massive losses in tough economic times. One expert in the South African sports sponsorship scene has painted a gloomy picture of CSA making an R80 million loss on the MSL this season, with the total sponsorship kitty available in South Africa for all sports, across the board, apparently being pegged at an estimated R100 million.

One can admire CSA for what they are trying to do with the MSL, but financial realities also need to be considered.