MAKING SENSE OF THE BUSINESS OF SPORT

Last week former MP Odonga Otto lit up social media with claims that Uganda’s sports bodies, more specifically football governing body FUFA and the Uganda Olympic Committee (UOC) receive millions of dollars a year from the international parent bodies to support sport but that the sportsmen do not benefit.

The former MPs diatribe was prompted by the question “Why isn’t Uganda at the World Cup?”.

Interestingly movie streaming company, Netflix, released a docuseries “FIFA Uncovered” a damning expose of how football governing body is riddled with corruption.

All this was happening against the backdrop of one of the most exciting World Cup’s in recent memory.

I think the honorable Otto’s claims should be looked into, if only so our sportsmen can get the much-needed facilitation they sorely deserve. But that is a story for another day.

However, what piqued my interest this week was the release of Forbes annual list of highest paid sportspersons.

Its an exciting list, like all such lists go.

"At the top of the list was Argentine footballer, Lionel Messi who last year made $130m (sh480b) before tax on and off the pitch. Messi, 34, took a salary cut to join Paris St Germain from Barcelona but business partnerships with Adidas, Budweiser and PepsiCo more than made up for the shortfall and then some...

There were other household names in the world of sports on the list like basketball’s LeBron James ($121m), Stephen Curry($92.8m) and Kevin Durant($92.1m); Soccer’s Christian Ronaldo ($115m) and Neymar ($95m); now-retired Tennis player Roger Federer ($90.7m) and boxer Canelo Alvarez ($90m) among others.

Interestingly despite the recent global crisis, sportsmen’s earning have been seen a lot of inflation. A decade ago the highest paid athlete was boxer Floyd Mayweather who earned in ($85m) and Ronaldo was the only soccer player in the top ten.

A decade further back Tiger Woods was the top earning sportsman pulling in $69m that year. There was no soccer player in the top 10 that year. 

Clearly more and more money is being thrown at sport, are we seeing a corresponding jump locally?

Our sports associations are largely run by volunteer administrators, who while not getting a regular income (so we think), hang on to their positions like grim death. If you line them up they are not the most altruistic members of our society, so you have to wonder why they keep in office for so long. For the love of the game? Puleez!

That aside the explosion in incomes for athletes around the world is a reflection of the need for content to feed the media. Revenues from broadcast long outstripped matchday seat sales for premiership teams.

It makes sense, the more people watching a sport, the more people will pay to slap their logos on those athletes to gain top of mind awareness with the consuming public...

So that seems to be a logical place to start, how do we attract eyeballs to our sports? With internet and the falling price of data It is easier than ever before to do this.  A half decent smartphone positioned to film from a strategic place and live streaming on any number of social media would be a good start.

For people to consume your media product they need they need consistency and quality and then the numbers can be sold to corporate clients. Its not automatic that the numbers will flood to your uploads that is a function of awareness building and marketing.

The following that comes with that can then be leveraged for sponsorships. Increased revenues can then be used to beef up sportsmen welfare and improve existing infrastructure

I simplify of course but it is actually a linear logic.

The sports administrators will complain that this needs money anyway. True, but the administrators need to cross the table to the side of the corporate sponsors to see things from their perspective.

The man with the budget is looking to see how much bang he can get for his buck, the assurance that if he gives you money, he will be able to report more sales of his product or greater brand awareness. If you can show him that, it makes it that much easier to loosen the purse strings. Its sales 101, show me value and I show you the money...

The money man on the other side of the table want also to see organization, so that he is sure that at the minimum his money will be good use and better still there can be a long-term relationship built. So, our organisations need to get organized (ironic?) before they can get money. Is it in anyone’s interest to keep them disorganized?

By the time Ronaldo commands $55m in off field income, his agents can point to the more than 690 million social media followers around the world, as a guarantee of eyeballs on him. These are independently verifiable. And by the way Ronaldo has all these followers due somewhat to momentum – I am following Ronaldo because my friends are following him, but more because his followers came from a deliberate marketing effort. You try to get a thousand followers on social media and you will see how hard it is to raise numbers.