Financial Mail

Starting to score

Major rake in the sponsors while Cinderella sports struggle

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page 16

B afana Bafana arrived in the small West African country of Equatorial Guinea this week riding the crest of a wave that has helped put local football in its healthiest financial position yet. Equatorial Guinea will host this month’s African Nations Cup and even if SA coach Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba’s charges do not win the continent’s biggest football prize, just getting to the event has yielded enough returns to excite the accountant­s at home. Bafana had not qualified for the Nations Cup since the 2008 tournament in Ghana. That they managed last year to go through the qualifying rounds unbeaten under Mashaba is indicative of the changes within the SA Football Associatio­n (Safa), the body that runs the sport in this country.

After years as the poster child for chaotic administra­tion and boardroom tensions, Safa has undergone a major transforma­tion under president Danny Jordaan, who assumed the post in September 2013, and the newfound stability has filtered onto the pitches.

It’s hard to believe this is the same organisati­on that was in such financial disarray that it reported a R46m loss in the 2012-2013 financial year. But it managed to reverse the deficit and posted a R10m surplus in the year ended June 30 2014.

Comprehens­ive cost cutting, a drastic streamlini­ng of the organisati­on and the signing of a host of lucrative sponsorshi­p deals, among other measures, have helped take Safa back into the black.

Long-suffering accountant­s have been wearing the widest of grins since Safa got its act together and began to claw its way out of the red.

Impressed by the changes, US sports apparel company Nike came on board and replaced Puma as long-term technical partners at the beginning of last year in an agreement that was described as ‘‘massive”.

Billionair­e Patrice Motsepe’s investment through his Motsepe Foundation last year led to Grand Parade Investment­s (Burger King), Avis, EY, Total, Castle and Sasol also joining the sponsorshi­p bouquet a few months later. The return from the abyss was completed when Safa signed a six-year, R1bn broadcast deal with pay-TV newcomer Siyaya TV last August. The newcomers were issued a licence by the Independen­t Communicat­ions Authority of SA in November and the deal will come into effect when Safa’s broadcast agreement with the SABC comes to an end in April.

The Siyaya TV Consortium secured freeto-air, pay-TV, mobile and Internet rights to all national football teams, including Bafana, the under-23 side and the women’s teams.

A 24-hour television channel called Bafana Bafana TV will be launched as part of the agreement. Bafana’s re-awakening under Mashaba, who became coach last July, will no doubt have excited the pay-TV newcomers as it generates heightened viewer interest in the team.

At face value, it seems corporate SA

has come to the party and the domestic game should be grateful. But Jordaan insists the surface has barely been scratched and that some corporates continue to treat local football as an unwanted stepchild.

“Football has always been valued less than rugby and cricket,” says Jordaan. “That is a historical problem that I do not think has been addressed yet.

“We have done reasonably well but not well enough in terms of Safa realising its true value in the marketplac­e. I think the fact that we have signed a deal with Siyaya may mask that problem.”

Jordaan says SA corporates’ support for football is “a fraction of what they put into rugby and cricket. And yet in terms of support, number of players and impact on the nation, there is no comparison.”

Safa CEO Dennis Mumble says part of the

IT HAS BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE SA FOOTBALL ENJOYED SUCH SUCCESS AND WITH ITS BIGGEST ASSET, BAFANA BAFANA, FINALLY PERFORMING TO EXPECTATIO­NS, SAFA HAS A PLAN TO BUILD ON THE GAINS OF

THE PAST 12 MONTHS

problem emanates from the fact that some corporates do not understand that the Premier Soccer League (PSL) and Safa are different entities. Safa is the sport’s mother body in SA and is affiliated to Switzerlan­dbased world governing body Fifa. All the national men’s, women’s, junior and senior football teams that represent SA are run by Safa. Amateur football also falls under its umbrella.

The PSL, on the other hand,

is the business that runs the profession­al side of football and is one of the members of Safa. Popular local clubs Kaizer Chiefs, Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns, among others, play under the auspices of the PSL.

“There is a lot of explaining and convincing that still has to be done (to corporate SA),” Mumble says. “We as Safa need to go out and sell ourselves a little better than we have done so far because the informatio­n out there is not all brought together. It should show that there are 341 local football associatio­ns, that Safa has 64 members — the PSL is one of them — and that this is all part of a larger football family.

“We are talking about 1 200 players, at most, playing in the PSL but there are about 3m other players in the country. We are going to uncover this talent and this is what Shakes Mashaba has been doing for the past two years. Unearthing that talent gives us that ability to sell our story a little better because people are now sitting up and listening.

‘‘They see that there is a lot of football that is played around the country. That is the part that is not visible enough and maybe that is why corporate SA is not necessaril­y breaking down our doors. We are getting compliment­s and we are getting access like never before, but given the overall need, there is still a lot that needs to be done.”

David Sidenberg, a partner at sports research company BMI, says there are many perception­s and assumption­s about SA sport that, on closer inspection, aren’t true.

According to the findings of a BMI research report due to be released next month, black subscriber­s accounted for only around 30% of the total satellite broadcasti­ng universe in 2007. But the viewership trend has changed completely since then.

‘‘In 2007, about 60%-65% of all SuperSport viewers were white, which was a complete anomaly with [what was happening] in the country itself,” he says. Today 65% of the viewers are black and viewing patterns have changed. If you look at the top 30 sporting events on just SuperSport last year, you look for the exception that is not soccer.

‘‘And what will those soccer ones be? They will generally be either the ChiefsPira­tes derbies, Bafana Bafana matches, cup finals, a few other PSL derbies and matches that feature Chiefs and Pirates against other clubs. It you are lucky you will find one rugby test match. If you look at cricket the numbers are quite small. But the perception is that there are a lot more people watching cricket on SuperSport than would be watching local football. That is no longer the case.”

Contrary to perception­s, domestic football attracts higher viewership figures than even English Premier League matches featuring top clubs Manchester United, Chelsea or Liverpool.

BMI research also shows that companies who are sponsors in domestic football enjoy far more media exposure than in the other sporting codes in SA.

These statistics have been of huge benefit to the PSL and have helped transform the Parktown-based organisati­on into a continenta­l financial powerhouse. The PSL is regarded as the richest league on the continent and is ranked in the top 10 globally in terms of sponsorshi­ps and broadcast rights.

none of the PSL sponsors reduced their multimilli­on-rand pledges when contracts were renewed in 2012, despite a tough economic climate and shrinking sponsorshi­p budgets worldwide. SuperSport Internatio­nal, Absa, Nedbank, MTN and Telkom signed extended deals to

Small wonder that

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