There is still hope for unsponsered teams
Well,
it is yet another edition of burning issues in these series of wise articles. In
today’s discussion the topic is somewhat tempting but interesting knowing its
applicability covers a wide scope. The rationale of the concepts in this
article is trying to bail out various sports teams and players from the dungeon
of economic bottlenecks affecting Malawi and several other nations.
In
line with the philosophy to be articulated later in this chapter, it tempts the
author to reveal to the audience an article targeted in the long-advertised
blog on community and development communication. Have you, the good audience,
ever thought what benefits do prisoners or offenders contribute to the development
of the nation or the communities? Okay, take time and think of somebody who was
a suspect in a case of eight million kwacha robbery. That particular person is found
guilty and has been sentenced to five years in prison with hard labour. Do the
kind of labour assigned to such a person worthy the damage he has made and
perhaps help to contribute something to the development of the nation? Perhaps
the sentences are just meant to punish the person in body, rights and freedom
and maybe disassociation from their normal duties in the world.
Pause for a while, and throw your eyes into
the various prison and police cells, see how many energetic people are
languishing behind the bars for years serving minor cases yet big offenders
walk freely in town. Yet such men-in-white continue to use a lot of government
resources or else struggle in extreme inhumane conditions despite having
capabilities to look after themselves while still inside the gate.
This
does not spare the grass-root traditional courts. We respect our chiefs for
their various interventions in curbing crimes at community level. But perhaps
the question could be, if somebody is found guilty of an offence, in their
traditional rulings what are the kind of sentences that they pass and how much
is the community benefiting. Somebody in the village is found guilty of an
offence, and is told to pay goats, only to be shared by the chief and his
council, is such a sentence worthy the damage and contribution to the
development? In a nutshell, the author thinks there are numerous needs in the
communities and the nation at large that can be satisfied by contribution of
the offenders through ‘cheap labour’ as part of their sentences which can bring
about development. If such ideas to be shared in the community and development
communication article get utilized, surely the nation and communities can
develop with little available resources. Remember, resources will never be
adequate enough to start proclaiming developmental ideas rather the splendid developmental
ideas can be adequate enough to utilize the few resources.
It
is the same inspiration of trying to utilize minimal resources towards
development that has sprouted the ambition to share with the sports family
these financial ideas which if utilized properly can help to boost the teams’
treasuries amid the prevailing world economic anguishes.
As
usual, the speaker has a few announcements to make. The utmost announcement
comes from the last weekend’s big game involving a super league leader and
champions. It never rains but pours for the giant Bullets Football Club having
lost a successive game in a space of five days.
Yes,
Airborne Rangers Football club can be overexcited being the first Tnm super
league team to spoil the Bullets’ unbeaten run in the Malawi’ major league. To
Airborne, the win has gone into history and will also boost confidence when
facing other big teams in the league. The loss for Bullets means a lot now and
later. It has been confirmed that the unbeaten run honeymoon is over! At the
same time, it has a psychological effect to influence the approach of
subsequent games. On the pendulum the possibility of winning or losing the next
games is now balanced. The loss can take out some quantities of confidence in
the players. But also the coach will be tempted to make some changes to the
tactics and the starting lineup.
Eventually,
the game plan will be compromised. In contrary to these, the loss can also be a
wakening call to the peoples’ team from its sleep and complacency having enjoyed
the unbeaten praises for a long time. Perhaps the Bullets team has been
reminded that there are also teams in the league capable of winning games. Airborne
rangers have sent a strong message on behalf of the rookies to the big teams in
the league that when the season draws to the end, small teams fight hard to
escape relegation. So, yeah, no team should be undermined.
The
author wishes to acknowledge the hot debate germinated from the previous
articles’ introductory paragraphs. Well, essentially these articles are framed
to give people what to think about, perhaps that is the reason they are called
articles of wisdom. The author in some instances may not necessarily be
successful to provide answers or direction of thinking but will be enticing,
stirring up and begging our thinking and reasoning.
Lastly,
it has honored the writer to put hands together for the warm and best active
audience of this forum. Most welcome to members from the academia and specifically
the journalism training school that have expressed interest to pluck a leaf
from these articles for their various tasks. Your contribution too, is highly
appreciated.
The
preacher-man is tempted to entice another hot debate before starting recitation
of today’s points of discussion. With, Football Association of Malawi’
elections around the corner, it has ignited the neurons of the author to
suggest the free, fair and credible way of choosing the governing leaders. It
is not only in the football governing body, or being in Malawi only; it is an
ignored disease on the world stage that refuses to face the remedy! The use of
affiliates only to be eligible voters makes the positions in the governing
executive being scrambled and shared among the same few serving members of the
body, with negligible entrants.
Unsurprisingly, nobody from the outside of
affiliates’ circle can win any top post, unless otherwise! This procedure
denies various individuals from exercising their rights to contest in the
elections and perhaps others voted to hold various offices.
It
becomes more heartbreaking technically when the constitutions of such governing
bodies begin to be amended anyhow I mean everything so closed. Perhaps Malawi Electoral Commission can intervene
to include the aspirants in the Sports governing bodies on the political
elections’ ballot paper-Ha-ha-ha. Otherwise, we are about to make certain
individuals darling of their seats forever. For now, advice to the affiliates,
let merit dictates. If the person has performed well, yeah giving them additional
years is not harm at all. Weigh the candidates and award only what they
deserve; not guided by politics of sports, mere malicious damage, or personal
hatred but through the work of their hands.
The prophet of sports begins his sermon with a
surprising discovery. Many sports teams in the country have at one point or the
other demonstrated the will and interest to receive benefits from where they
have not invested. It is disease knowing the subtle repercussion of free-meal
or indeed donor aid. Against the
sympathy that the recipient is a needy person, or institution but the fact
remains that donor aid influences dependency syndrome and cripples the minds of
the beneficiaries from developing ideas of meeting their own needs. Whether the audience will begin to question
the integrity of this author, or his sympathy levels towards the needy or
criticizing his school of thought, but the barefooted point remains-donor aid
is bad. If the people chose to question the reputation, yeah, after all before
the integrity of every person can be authenticated, it has to first be maligned
and denigrated. For some of us who have had analytical look at development and
international interventions will agree that many institutions and nations are
shaky in finance management and sustainability just because they are operating
under the donor’s conditions and mercy.
In sports, the teams have lost and will continue to
lose their names and colors due to conditions of the donors. Ha-ha-ha oh yeah,
the names will continue to be changed perhaps until the registrar says you have
reached your maximum names entry. Of course it is part of benefitting from the
association with the teams, but we have seen elsewhere in the world where mere
display of a companies’ logo and names on the jersey and equipment is enough
the sponsorship deal even without changing the team’s name and colors.
Do boxing fighters or weight lifters change their
surname to that of the sponsor when they put in ink a deal? M-m-m it should be food
for thought. This idea behind utilizing other sports financing avenues has come
at a time when some big teams are failing to get a sponsorship. The government of
Malawi is so far the only major sponsor through its agencies such as Malawi
Defense Force, Malawi Police Service, Reserve Bank of Malawi and the Civil
Service. Resources for supporting these teams having come from the tax payers’
money, it could be logical to move the motion that these teams are being
sponsored by ordinary Malawians. In
football, there are few teams sponsored by independent entities. In the major
league there are just teams such as Be Forward Wanderers and Epac FC.
The scope of this article should be broadened to all
other sports disciplines that have tangible supporters’ base. These are
Netball, women football, and men football at different levels: lower leagues,
major leagues and trophies and national team level.
Lacking the sponsorship is a fact of reality in
Malawi. But still there is a financing avenue that has not been fully exploited
but teams elsewhere in the world are making huge profits from it. While, the talk in the article may
romantically give examples of football teams and players, the audience should
think outside these grids and cast the application to the other sports
disciplines.
The richest clubs in Europe and the world streams
revenues from three main categories: match-day revenue (game receipts),
broadcasting revenue (domestic and international), and commercial revenue
(sponsorship and merchandise). According to the annual report by the Deloitte,
a firm that looks at ranking of various clubs in the world based on their
wealthy accumulation, it is clear that the most richest clubs in the world get
more revenues from commercial than the other two avenues. See the table on this link
as provided by Deloitte. http://www.businessofsoccer.com
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| The media pay broadcasting rights in Europe |
The commercial revenue is generated from sponsorship
and merchandise. The merchandise includes jerseys. Perhaps it can be argued
that obviously the sponsorship pours in more money. Yes, it does, but still
contribution of the merchandise must not be undermined. The same firm, Deloitte, acknowledged on its
website that elite clubs are making biggest sales and they amass billions in
revenues only by selling their club soccer jerseys. Clubs such as AC Milan,
Inter Milan, Juventus, Arsenal, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Barcelona,
Manchester United, and Real Madrid are said to be among the reading teams profiting
from selling jerseys in Europe.
The number of jerseys sale depends on their
trophies, titles, big transfers and famous players count. The current top-ten
names of players that are making paramount sells of jerseys in their respective
clubs are Philippe Coutinho, Alexis Sa`nches,
Sergio Aguero, Neymar, Wayne Rooney, Eden Hazard, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Memphis Depay,
Cristiano Ronaldo, and Lionel Messi (http://m.foxsports.com.au/football/).
In Malawi like any other countries in the world
there are teams that have a good record of trophies, titles, famous players and
even current performance.
These teams undoubtedly command large following in
terms of supporters that prefer to associate with the accolade of the winning
teams. Big teams such as Big Bullets, Be Forward Wanderers, Civo Service United
and Silver Strikers in the football category and Black Diamond Ladies and MTL
Queens in the netball, on top of the Malawi National Netball Team, the Queens
and the National Football Team, the Flames. And these teams are likely to make
huge sales of merchandise like their counterparts in Europe. Of course somebody
argues that it was tried before but yielded poor results. Well, here is a tip.
In Malawi with absence of broadcasting rights, and
an unconvincing match-day revenue, and very few sponsorships, there is still an
exploited financing avenue which is merchandise selling.
Perhaps, lack of sponsorship has a long history with
factors such as economic shambles of various possible local companies, lack of
interest by the companies due to attitude that they on the sports teams, and
win-lose attitude of the teams against the sponsors to mention but some. Despite
all these problems, there is still hope for teams to generate revenue from a
tool that assures sustainability perhaps than sponsorship.
The author has discovered a dire need of the
supporters to be associated with the colors of their respective teams. The
teams can take advantage of such a high demand to ply their hot business that
can invite in a lot of money but in a win-win situation.
It was just last Thursday 15th October,
and also on Saturday when two big teams in the country had decisive Standard Bank
knockout games. What was apparent on these days was that most of the people
that the author had met in the street proved this need to identify themselves
by putting on something related to the colors of their team. The caps,
T-shirts, Golf-shirts, scarfs, armbands, and flags to mention a few. Some of
those people had to wear jerseys of European clubs such as Liverpool, Arsenal,
and Manchester United for bullets, Chelsea, and Dpp colors to imitate Be
Forward Wanderers attire. The other people had to even put on non-sports
clothes just to chase colors of their team.
The author has an idea, listen. It does not
necessarily need for the clubs to acquire official replica jersey because even
the teams themselves are struggling to purchase for their players. Rather, the
author thinks the teams can use cheap means to replicate the colors and then
make sales. Yes, let us take this example. If a club hires a company to produce
cotton T-shirts or Golf-shirts dyed in colors of a particular team and sell it
at K4000.00 each. Don’t you think the supporters will be able to buy? After all
people are able to acquire modified replica jersey of their European teams in
the range of K10, 000 and above.
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| Shirts like this are cheap to acquire | pic courtesy of poly 2015 journalism class |
One of the reasons why the Chinese clothes have
flooded the markets of Malawi is that the companies studied the buying
capabilities of Malawians and produced clothes within those affordable prices.
Now it is time for clubs’ accountants to calculate the estimated supporters
against the price of the T-shirts or Golf-shirts. With adequate marketing
strategies and campaigns, the teams should be able to pocket a lot of money.
As part of marketing strategy, perhaps after three
months of selling, the teams can think of changing the design of the attires,
just to create a need in the supporters for the new fashion. At the end of a season
if big teams like BB, Be Forward Wanderers, Civo and Silver fail to yield
something from the sales then there is a big problem. This investment
intervention can also help the teams to be responsible and accountable on their
resources as compared to free given resources. Sometimes, the teams can produce
replica shirts specifically for a particular trophy such as the Standard Bank
or the Carlsberg cup.
Let us do a bit of calculation; a team has an
estimated supporters’ figure of five hundred thousand. Then four hundred
thousand supporters have bought the shirts at K4000 each in a season. It has
cost the team K3, 000 to produce each shirt. Calculate the earnings. Possibly the
revenue would be around K1, 600, 000,000 against the cost of K1, 200,000, 000.
The difference between the two which is then the profit comes to about K400,
000.000. Arguably, the profit can be enough to assist the budget of a team in a
season. From that point the various clubs can begin to estimate their revenues
based on the number of their supporters.
There are also scarfs and armbands that can go at a
giveaway prices say of K300. Then calculate how much is your club losing for
not selling. Equally, the scarfs can go at K1000 or K500 based on production costs.
Rule of thumb; don’t peg the prices at a point where you think can make
abnormal profits!
If the club has managed to sell many T-shirts in a
season, it would not be surprising to see companies expressing interest to
sponsor the merchandise. Undoubtedly a very good number of companies would be
willing to advertise on the shirts, thereby pouring additional revenues to the
teams.
It is high time the teams should start to operate as
business entities than expecting charity gesture from the well-wishers.
The teams can also utilize the famous names in their
respective squads to help market the shirts. At one point, the author wondered
as to how much do the famous players benefit the clubs in revenue collection
apart from pitch performance only. Some time ago, in Malawi there was Gabadinho
Mhango, the young man from Bullets squad who was selling like hot cake for his
willy-nilly scoring skills. How much did the player contributed to the Bullets’
revenue apart from crowding supporters at the stadium to watch him? Nobody
knows. Obviously at that time many people had wanted to associate with his
name. If the club had produced even mere T-shirts with a name at the back ‘Gabadinho’
surely the people’s team would have made more revenue.
At the moment there is Blue Eagles’ player Shummakar
Kuwali. Ha-ha-ha at mere mentioning of his name, goalkeepers tremble. But the
fact is that the Blue Eagles supporters would want to associate with his name. Perhaps not only in football, even in netball,
women football and other sporting activities. For instance those supporting the
Malawi Queens may have wanted to
have something in remembrance of the punishing shooter Mwawi Kumwenda, and at Malawi level a T-shirt can do. Of course the
author hears murmuring as to whether the Boxers can replicate belts since they don’t
put on shirt when fighting. Ha-ha-ha the boxers are well placed to answer about
the belts, but the author thinks the same items are applicable to all
disciplines.
There have been revenue collecting interventions
such as using supporters’ registration fee. However, the supporters too, like
any other person would want to get something in return for their investment
than giving it for free. As such giving them a piece of wear in return for
their money, can be a sustainable reward.
These tools have been deemed unutilized because
instead of the clubs opening shops for these merchandise, it is the vendors in
the various markets that are taking advantage to cash in. They produce clubs
scarfs, armbands, and other team color associated items. Ha-ha-ha the vendors
must be angry at the author.
But
perhaps, unluckily, if this financing tool fails to produce a better result
than anticipated then the teams should try selling Zibwente or Zigege dyed in
their colors. Ha-ha-ha yes, tinted with team colors; red for Bullets, blue for
Nomads, yellow for Civo, orange for Epac… ha-ha-ha- leave zibwente alone,
already the food has reached an outbreak status.
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