South Africa is widely regarded as Africa’s leading sports economy and rightly so. In the last decade, the country has carefully created and stimulated a sports economy that has become commercially viable and also serves as a model to other nations with significant sporting potential.
The South African Premier League is the continent’s most lucrative and rewarding having been backed by ABSA Bank since 2007. Its football cup competitions have leading brands among which are MTN and Nedbank as title sponsors. In Rugby, ABSA is another leading player as are Castle Lager and Ram Hand to Hand Couriers in Cricket. Clearly, the least of South Africa’s problems for its sports economy is investment and revenue generation.
Conversely, while most of the continent is awash with talent but suffering from an acute lack of funding, investment and infrastructure, South Africa’s main worry has been a sustainability of the said sports economy given a relative dearth of talent. This is why MultiChoice’s new corporate responsibility programme in partnership with governing body of the South African Premier League, the PSL, is one to be excited about.
The initiative will see the launching of a 16-team development league in partnership with the PSL which is aimed, crucially, at providing young talent with a competitive games to improve and be nurtured while aiming to ultimately fast track the emergence of these youngsters into the PSL league. The initiative, dubbed the MultiChoice Diski Challenge, will kick off on September 2014 and run till March 2015 with a total of 66 games to be played. The reward for the eventual champions includes the customary trophy presentation ceremony but also a trip to Holland to train at the camps of the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB), home to the legends of football’s most famous youth coaches Rinus Michels and Johann Cruyff.
With the backing of South Africa’s government and the charismatic Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula, this move is reminiscent of Germany’s groundbreaking initiative in 2000 to create talent centres across the countries and enforce the creation of academies across its top two divisions- a move which has arguably contributed wholesomely to delivering the World Cup to Germany 14 years later.
For the PSL clubs, this initiative could also inadvertently fashion a huge revenue stream that could vastly raise the levels of income potential, competition and even the value of South African football in general. All over the world, premium is placed on young football talent and should the MultiChoice Diski Challenge unearth some of the world’s next global superstars, South African clubs could make incredible profits from big money transfers. Portuguese giants Porto are said to have earned a staggering £614 million in transfers in the last decade from transfers and only a small slice of that fortune could greatly impact on South African football scene.
For Bafana Bafana, the potential rewards are quite apparent as exciting young talent will end up in the national team and make it an even more attractive proposition for the brands who scramble to associate with it. South Africa Football Association (SAFA) recently announced a $93 million broadcast deal with Siyaya TV and should the national team enjoy more success in the coming years owing to the injection of young and exciting talent, a flurry of deals just as lucrative can be expected.
In the last decade, South Africa’s sports economy has progressed remarkably as a result of strategic thinking and excellent marketing. However, it is far reaching policy and initiatives such as this that have the power to help South Africa truly play on the global stage.
With the South Africans thinking two steps ahead, the rest of continent has some serious catching up to do.
