THE MUSEVENI ECONOMIC LEGACY

Last week I was involved in an online conversation about the economic achievements of President Yoweri Museveni’s administration. The conversation was prompted by the impending 80^th birthday of the President, which happened on the weekend.

It is a subject that should and will be discussed well into the future.

A brief recap of history is important.

When the National Resistance Movement (NRM) came to power in 1986 they found an economy in shambles, brought to its knees by the years of instability and economic contraction of the 1970s and 1980s.

"To resuscitate the economy, the NRM fought to bring inflation under control, privatized government parastatals to get them back into production and liberalised the economy to unlock individual initiative, which, up to that point, was discouraged by insecurity and suppressed by government monopolies. The government also worked to rehabilitate infrastructure and provide other public goods like security, health and education....

No less a figure than Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew in 1988, dismissed Uganda’s case as hopeless and did not think its fourtunes would be restored in a 100 years.

Since that January day in 1986 the economy has been on an unbroken growth streak, production has not only been restored but expanded, macroeconomic stability has been achieved and the economy is diversified away from an overreliance on coffee.

The economy still has a long way to go. The widening wealth disparity has to be addressed urgently, before it threatens national stability, by fighting corruption and increasing the productivity of the rural areas.

There is not enough space in this column to address all the achievements of the last four decades but off the top my head two initiatives were key in turning the economy around.

The first was ensuring security. This is critical to allow for investment by local and foreign businessmen. It would make no sense to invest in a home or enterprise if you are not sure that you will be alive next year or even the next day. The Kampala urban sprawl is evidence of this. 

In 1986 Kampala stopped at Kibuye roundabout in the south, Wandegeya in the north, Lugogo in the east and just before Natete in the west. As people have grown confident in the future of the house they have invested in homes and businesses that has grown Kampala more than tenfold from its 600,000 population in 1986.

The second was the liberalization of the economy. In those days there were government companies in everything from supermarkets to petrol stations, from housing estates to fishing boats. And all these were virtual monopolies in their sectors, ineffective, inefficient and draining the lifeblood from tax payer.

By privatizing these and opening the market to competition, government not only turned on the production taps but also harnessed the market to create sustainable growth.

Professor John Kay in his seminal book “The truth about markets” explained that the market is really a series of experiments by businessmen every minute, every day, every time. The experiments that work grow and those that don’t are dropped by the way side. Out of this chaos, creative destruction, which mirrors the evolutionary process, is born growth and wealth. No central authority anywhere in the world can replicate these multitude of experiments with any success, which is why governments all over the world fail at business.

People who pander for central control of the economy are often a small clique, who have failed in the market, but are connected to government and see government involvement as a way to get back in the game. It is to their benefit and not to the benefit of everyday man.

"Forced by necessity more than conviction the NRM liberalized the economy and in so doing unlocked the individual initiatives of local and foreign businessmen and the economy has been better for the experience...

Currently we are at a cross road.

While the market is the most effective mechanism for growing wealth it is probably the worst for distributing that wealth. Distribution of wealth is government’s role by taxing economic activity and using revenues to finance public goods. If the economy is growing as Uganda’s is but inequalities continue to persist and growth it is an indictment on government’s competence or lack of in the distribution of the wealth that is created.

Government distribution of wealth does not mean standing at the corner and dishing out money. Distribution often entails giving the population the means to take advantage of the economic opportunities that come with economic growth by keeping them safe, educating them, providing health services, access to markets through developing infrastructure, both hard and soft and for the most marginalized, a leg up by providing social security.

Museveni’s legacy will be cemented by the equitable distribution of the economic gains of the last 40 years.

As it is now the biggest beneficiaries are people living in urban areas, who are educated and can leverage this to get employment or compete in the market as businessmen. Given the system that the NRM uprooted that gave access to a few – there were barely 5000 students in University in 1986, often to the detriment of the majority, the beneficiaries continue to be a few.

"Going into the next four decades the economy must continue to grow, there can be no development without growth, but there has to be a more systematic and consistent effort to ensure this growth is shared out more equitably...

Happy birthday Mzee!

CHINA TOWN: A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME

Last week China Town opened its doors for business and were swamped by hundreds of Ugandans.

It reminded me of a time when Shoprite opened for business at Ben Kiwanuka street and people bought everything off their shelves days before Christmas 2000. Interestingly most of the shoppers were traders who were buying goods in bulk and going on to sell them in their shops.

Local businessmen, then like now, complained about the new competition that they were practicing unfair competition and not sourcing goods locally. 

But prior to Shoprite’s entry, when Metro Cash & Carry opened shop at the UMA show ground, local traders were up in arms because among other things, they got their own customs bonded warehouse. Local traders saw this as favouritism and screamed blue murder.

Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) at the time explained that Metro Cash & Carry was importing huge volumes, the example I remember was about toilet paper, and therefore deserved and could afford to maintain their own customs bonded warehouse.

"Our traders now like then, adopt a do-it-yourself approach and still import small quantities as opposed to if they came together, bulked their imports and benefitted from economies of scale...

In fact when China Town starts buying from local producers, they – local producers, may prefer to deal with them rather than the small traders, because they will take huge volumes at once. As for the customers they voted with their feet last week and will most probably continue to do so.

Many years ago this column listed Charlie Lubega as one of the savviest businessmen in Kampala. Lubega’s Ange Noire discotheque was on the cutting edge of entertainment technology, upgrading his equipment and the club’s ambiance regularly long before the competition in the form of Silk came to town.   

In so doing Lubega increased the barriers to entry, shutting out pretenders, while keeping his patrons wowed.

Our local traders can learn a thing or two from Lubega.

"You cannot stop the forces of competition, especially since your customers don,t care whether you are made in Uganda or not. What you can do is to understand the competition, present and potential and confront them or turn tail and run.

It is only in the last decade or so that we have got locally owned supermarket chains to which a lot of middle class Kampala have gravitated towards. While they maybe pricier than downtown offerings, middle class Kampala has decided the higher prices are a small price to pay, rather than fend off pick pockets and car part thieves, looking for parking, pushing and shoving with the unwashed masses.

Our local business have been learning over the last three decades, in a most practical way the meaning of competitive advantage.

They have learnt that businessmen with better financing and more efficient supply chains can squeeze them to the periphery of the economy, where the pickings are thin and unsustainable.

What they have not quite mustered is how to respond to this existential threat.

It is easy to appeal to government and nationalistic sentiment, but once these have lost their buzz, you will still be faced by the same overwhelming competitors.

By the way, the government will make the appropriate sounds, but only for a while, because its interest is that Ugandan consumer can get goods cheaply and the ease with which they can collect revenue from these multinationals, as opposed to going door to door in kikuubo and being threatened by strikes when local traders don’t like EFRIS.

So what is the local businessman to do? Like Ange Noire’s Lubega they need to adopt a long view. They need to ask themselves  what they can do, which no foreigner can do better than them and control that space or at worst find a way of collaborating rather than fighting these forces of competition, which are here to stay.

I don’t think we import matooke, and I can count on one finger how many foreigners are growing matooke locally. The question would be how we can improve our production and distribution so that no one can take that away from us. Because believe it or not someone can produce matooke cheaper and package it better somewhere in the world and we would be a ready-made market for them. They will come and wipe out our matooke industry and we will wonder what happened. You laugh.

Secondly, they need to be at the forefront of promoting efforts to increase demand in Uganda. One of the reasons South Africa has the most advanced financial system on the continent is because during apartheid when everyone was not buying South Africa, they made local resource mobilization a priority and credit easily available to everybody so the internal market could sustain their businesses.

While credit is a double edged sword it allows consumers to live beyond their means and in so doing support local industry. As it is now we do not have enough local demand to build really robust industries.

So for instance while my kids need 2 liters of milk a day, I only buy half a liter because that is all the cash I have. If however I could buy the rest on credit, my children would be healthier, develop a taste for milk and become stronger consumers in the future.

"The competition is coming whether we like it or not. It is futile to fight it by trying to close it out. We can however focus on what we have a competitive advantage in, sharpen that competitive advantage and make it unattractive for others to even think about competing. Leave the contested ground to others. That way we will be winners....

Government on its part should map out these areas of competitive advantage and look to support entrepreneurs in those areas.

NIGHT AMPURIRE; START WHERE YOU ARE, WITH WHAT YOU HAVE

A few weeks ago a local TV station highlighted the plight of Night Ampurire, a market vendor in Kitoro. One of many market vendors, Ampurire’s stood out because of her rickety pickup, which she used to transport her water melons for sale at Kitoro market on Entebbe road.

The pickup she uses for her deliveries has to be a wonder of the world. Badly beaten up, its tire bald as a babies bottom, the foam all that is left of the car’s upholstery, it squeaked and groaned with every move.

It is a car where you have to have a prayer on your lips when you turn the ignition, you never know on any given day whether it will start or not.

"As if the precariousness of the car’s condition was not bad enough, Ampurire had to juggle shifting manual transmission gears with placating her four month old baby, who sometimes rode in her lap and sometimes she held her down with one hand in the passenger seat, while steering with the other...

In the accompanying interview she told how she saved for the car, which she bought for sh3.5m, how she repairs it herself and how it is enables her look after her family. She has four children.

Her story came to light again last week when telecom company MTN gifted her a new pickup.

 Ampurire’s story left me in awe of the woman, her indomitable spirit and unflappable will to make something of herself, despite her obvious personal limitations, a backfiring economy and the public around her, which did not give her half a chance.

When faced with hardship financial or otherwise the easier thing to do is to lie down and die. It takes a certain will to look around and use whatever it is you have available, to climb out of your hopelessness and misery. And it is always impossible until you do it.

My favourite story of a nation that has pulled itself up by the bootstraps, is that of South Korea.

 After the Korean war, which split the peninsula into North and South Korea, the two countries had been literally razed to the ground.

The market oriented South Korea faced with this predicament, determined that to pull themselves out of the poverty they would have to export to foreign markets. This made sense because the poverty in their internal market could not be a driver of economic growth, at least for a few years after the war.

But South Korea with barely any natural resources to speak of, had nothing to immediately sell to foreign markets. Or so it seemed.

They sold the only thing the 20 million South Koreans had in abundance and that was a renewable resource – human hair.

Since then South Korea has grown into a high tech hub with such brands as Samsung, LG Electronics, Kia and Hyundai now driving their economic growth.

"Ampurire is not the only one hustling out there. For every Ampurire who captures the national imagination there are easily 10,000 just like her – the real salt of the earth, working anonymously,  keeping their noses to the grinding stone and trying to make an honest living....

We know that while the economy continues to grow, the benefits of this growth are not enjoyed equitably. A lot of this has to do with government corruption and the subsequent failure of service delivery, which makes it difficult for the lesser of our society to climb the ladder.

But as people like Ampurire show us that with improved access to market, we need not wait for government to educate and treat us to climb out of poverty.

But as we saw with Ampurire’s story it is not a walk in the park. Individuals will have to gird their loins, take the leap of faith to take advantage of the opportunities within our reach.

Another major lesson from Ampurire’s story is that whether we try or we don’t, the time will pass. Ampurire decided to save for her car, dropping any coins she could spare in a savings box until she had accumulated enough to buy the car.

Whether she saved or did not save, the time would have passed. And while she has been struggling with a car that was worse for wear, it is safe to say she would have been worse off had she not had the car. Of course the only reason she crossed MTN’s radar was because of the car.

Interestingly most of us have discounted all the blood and sweat she shed and think she is lucky. We should know better.

MAYBE NSSF SHOULD BE LOOKING AT BUJAGALI TOO

At the end of July Total energies announced it had acquired SN Power, subsidiary of a Norwegian renewable energy company Scatec. In so doing it acquired SN Power’s 28.3 percent stake in the 250 MW Bujagali Hydropower plant.

SN Power acquired a 65 percent stake in Bujagali in 2018 from US private equity firm Sithe Global for a $277m (sh1 trillion), valuing the project at just over $400m at the time.

According to people who are familiar with the project, Bujagali’s value stands at just over $600m today or about sh2.3trillion.

"Bujagali is a particularly lucrative project because according to their power purchase agreement, which was signed off before it development started in 2008, it provides that they are paid for the capacity of the dam rather than for power generated...

So if we have no demand for their power, we pay for the unused power regardless.

On the surface of it, an unfair arrangement but was the kind of agreement needed to unlock the billion dollars required to develop the project at the time. International financiers require incredible guarantees to invest in places like Uganda which they see as carrying too much risk, be it economic, political or geopolitical.

It helps that a project like Bujagali has proved incredibly lucrative for its investors and may shift perspectives surrounding the risk of investing in Uganda.

I would not hold my breath for that though.

We may tear our hair out at the “unfairness” of the situation but that is the way the world goes around you either take it or leave it.

Leaving it,  would have stifled our growth over the last decade and who knows where we would be today.

"Before the commissioning of the Bujagali dam we were suffering daily load shedding, a World Bank report commissioned around that time estimated that businesses were losing at least 30 whole days of productivity due to power outages...

What is true of course is that those “unfair” conditions do not come up when they are investing in their home countries.

For one they will be borrowing in their local currency and billing their power in those same currencies. So exchange risk is not an issue.

In 2012 when Bujagali was commissioned, the average dollar rate that year was about Shs2,510, today its about sh3,750 or that the owners of Bujagali are paying their financiers today almost 50 percent more than they were paying for every dollar in 2012.

And that is just exchange risk. When you look at our economics and politics from the outside, the universal metrics of stability and continuity don’t apply.

So the best thing we can do is to have local investors who have a more nuanced view of our risks and know how to mitigate against them to finance such major but critical projects.

It is the difference between Aliko Dangote building the world’s biggest refinery in Nigeria and our own refinery whose financing has been up in the air ever since it was conceived.

In Uganda thankfully we have National Social Security Fund (NSSF) the biggest financial institution wholly owned by us.

With three quarters of its portfolio committed to fixed income assets – mostly government paper, running NSSF profitably seems like a no brainer.

NSSF has always argued that because they are dealing with people’s retirement savings, they do not have the luxury of going after risky projects. Given the way the Fund’s other parts of the portfolio – equities and real estate, are struggling, the smart thing may have been to just pour everything into  government securities.

But prizing a share of Bujagali for ourselves would fit nicely into that near-no-risk.

To begin with the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) guarantees payment whether Ugandans consume that power or not. This coupled with the high tariff of $0.083 would have NSSF laughing all the way to the bank. As if that is not enough over the 12 year duration of the concession, BUL has being paying out 90 percent of revenues in dividends.

But also given that the concession is still on until 2042 and yet local demand is doubling every nine years, this is as good a deal as government paper...

To whom much is given much should be expected.

NSSF needs to get first bite of the cherry at such lucrative deals. It will be good for its investors but will also give the country a better negotiating position when at the table with foreign investors. The Fund will also benfit much in terms of improved technical capacity when it moves more determinedly into such  mega deals for which its is the best suited in our current circumstances.

 

UGANDA ECONOMY CONTINUES TO GROW, WHERE?

Last week auditor firm PWC issued their “Uganda Economic Outlook -2024”. The annual report which comes after the reading of the budget painted a net positive picture of the economy for the coming year.

"The economy grew by six percent in 2023/24 higher than the previous year’s 5.3 percent, and is expected to grow even faster at 6.6 percent in 2024/25 mainly driven by investments in the oil sector...

Our growth rates are even more mouth watering when seen against world figures of 2.9 percent.

In addition growth in household consumption more than doubled to 8.2 percent compared to the 3.6 percent growth of the previous year. Which suggests that the economic growth is being driven by improvements in our pockets, helped by a slowing down of inflation and a stable exchange rate.

But structural issues persist that ensure that this good fortune is not spread more equitably. PWC noted that most of the GDP growth is being driven by manufacturing, construction and mining sectors, in addition to the investments in the oil sector.

This means that the agricultural sector which employs almost four in every five Ugandans is not growing as fast as it should to support our huge rural populations.

"This a damning statistic but in it lies a huge opportunity and the hope that Uganda’s economic growth is not about to plateau soon...

First of all the continuous economic growth of the last 40-odd years is nothing to be frowned about. The last time the economy contracted was in 1985. Economic growth is critical to support development – a general improvement in the welfare of a population.

You can have economic growth without development but you cannot have development without economic growth.

By adopting liberalsied economic policies in the 1990s Uganda set the foundation for the economic growth rally we are seeing by unlocking private initiative. The problem is that while the market is the most effective way of growing wealth it does a horrendous job of distributing that wealth.

The market left to its own devices will see the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer.

That’s where government comes in. by taxing the increasing economic activity they distribute the wealth or at least the ability to take advantage of this improved economic activity by funding public goods like law based governance, security, social services and infrastructure development.

In an economy like ours whose size has grown faster than the population, the fact that inequalities are widening is an indictment on government’s capacity to distribute the wealth. From an almost equal distribution of wealth or poverty in 1986, Kampala alone accounts for more than half of the nation’s GDP today.

Improvements in security, infrastructure, school enrollments and health care mean more people are getting half a chance of climbing the ladder, where there was none 40 years ago.

But if the tragedy at Kitezi waste disposal site last weekend is anything to go by, government still has a long way in delivering services to the least of our brothers. Most of that waste is generated by the top half of Kampala population, for who as long as they are spared the inconvenience of their garbage, could not care less where it is taken.

The Kitezi dump site is a public infrastructure that has been neglected as long as it provided a home for the rubbish fetched from the gates of the urban elite. The same urban elite were supposed to ensure Kitezi was run effectively and sustainably, but as long as it was far from public view (out of sight of the urban elite) we really did not care what happened there --  never mind that it was supposed to have been decommissioned a decade ago.

At time of writing this 34 people were confirmed dead, but those who know the area suggest this is a gross understatement.

Reports reveal the issues of waste have been neglected, underfunded and generally ignored.

"The Kitezi disaster can serve as a useful analogy of how the economy has been run to benefit the urban elite, either normally by making their life easier or by them creaming off the top jeopardizing the welfare of the lesser members of society.

Just because at a macro-level everything looks ok, doesn’t mean a Kiteziesque implosion of the economy is not an inevitable consequence, if we continue to sweep bad things under the carpet – corruption, domestic arrears for example.

 

 

UGANDA, BEWARE OF WHY NATIONS FAIL

The current move by parliament to have sittings in four regions of Uganda is disturbing and part of an established trend, where public officials seek to extract the maximum they can from the treasury and Ugandans be damned.

Last week parliament announced it is going to have sittings in West Nile, Lango and Karamoja ostensibly to bring the workings of parliament nearer the people. They would spend at least three days a week in each region. In the face of it, a noble endeavor but it can be argued there are more cost effective way of doing this.

This means parliament will have to provide for the more than 500 MPs to make the upcountry trips, in addition to about 200 staff, per diems all around. It has been reported that, at the minimum this will saddle Ugandans with a bill of sh5b a day.

"We should be concerned, because this is part of a trend of shifting resources away from production to consumption, a trend that history has shown does not end well...

In their book “Why Nations Fail” authors Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, after researching centuries of data on political evolution, came to the succinct conclusion that nations fail when their institutions are more extractive than inclusive.

Invariably extractive institutions derive from extractive politics where the power elite use these institutions to consolidate their power.

Extractive institutions are those that concentrate wealth and opportunity in the hands of a few as opposed to inclusive institutions in which broad based participation is encouraged, property rights are protected, which in turn foster innovation, investment and economic growth.

It does not take a nuclear scientist to work out that the inevitable outcome is poverty and wealth inequalities for the greater majority of the population.

It’s a vicious cycle, which if let alone leads to social chaos and political instability.

"These are serious issues, especially in this time when the economy is still struggling to recover from the Covid-pandemic, money is short and for many hopelessness is beginning to set in...

The lessons of the book, written in 2012, endure and we would be best advised to pay attention.

Uganda’s economy has grown by an average of six percent for the last 38 years, the longest single stretch of unimpeded growth in the history of the country. The challenge is that this growth is not being equitably enjoyed.

As it is the urban populations – despite our incessant whining, have been the biggest beneficiaries of this growth. So much so that, more than half the nation’s economic output (and I fear this is an understatement) is concentrated in Kampala.

This means that while the rest of the nation is struggling to get into middle income status -- $1,100 the per capita GDP of Kampala is easily over $5,000.

We have historical antecedents to this, the colonial state concentrated opportunities in a few hands, educating a handful of Ugandans for instance – there were 300 A-Level students at Independence and focusing infrastructure on extraction of raw materials rather than on availing access to markets for all.

Our post-independence governments have continued the trend, perpetuating the cycle of benefits accruing to a small group disproportionately.

"This move by parliament is just a symptom of this disturbing trajectory towards a failed nation....

There are hundreds, if not thousands of school going children or sick in those very same regions that would prefer that money is channeled towards education and health services.

The education ministry says it would take about sh14m to build a primary school classroom, so about sh98m to build seven classrooms add another two million for the head master’s office to round off the number to sh100m. So the sh5b a day spent on MPs pontificating and fulminating means 50 primary schools go unbuilt, a primary school every third district. So the three days the want to deliberate per region would account for a primary school a district.

Do we want to go into the beneficial ripple effect of educating a few hundred kids a district?

Or that Mulago spends about sh200,000 per out patient annually and therefore 75,000 out patients would be denied treatment at Mulago because we chose to splurge on an upcountry junket  for MPs.

Whichever you look at it, this is an ill-conceived expenditure we can do without, as a poor country trying to make sure everyone benefits from the miraculous recovery and growth of the last four decades.

Let us be serious. We are already on a very slippery slope, what with all our corruption, for us to indulge in such flights of fancy. Whether we continue to the slippery slope’s logical conclusion or not, will depend on how our political elite and public servants are restrained from gouging themselves at the public trough.

 

THE ECONOMICS OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES

The 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, US were the first games I watched.

That edition was famous for the US Carl Lewis winning four gold medals. It was also the year Kenyan Julius Korir won the steeplechase, starting a string of nine straight golds in the event by our Kenyan neighbours, that lasted until the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

So last week very much older, I settled in and gleefully arranged my remotes close at hand to enjoy two weeks of the Olympic smorgasbord.

I was not disappointed in week one.

US gymnast Simone Biles cemented her place as the greatest gymnast of all time, leading the US to gold in the team event and winning the women’s all-around event for herself. And at the time of writing she was in the finals of three other events and looking like a sure deal to bag gold in all.

The South Sudan men’s basketball team gave a good account of themselves against the US team, going down 103-86. This match was much anticipated, as only days ago it took a Lebron James three pointer in the final second of the game to squeeze past our northern neighbours 101-100.

We shall not say much about the women’s volleyball event.

But I have since developed an interest in the economics of sport and it was interesting understanding what it took to put these Olympics together.

For starters it is estimated that about €9billion (sh36.3trillion) was spent to make the Games happen, most of which was from private funding.  France did the new and upgraded the infrastructure which accounted for less than a half of the total budget...

The projections are that the economic benefits to the Paris region over the duration of the games and beyond will between €7 and €11billion (upto sh44trillion) due to a boost in tourism, job creation and infrastructure improvements.

There will be 329 gold medals on offer and the 48 Athletics winners will each walk away with $50,000.

For me the beauty of these games is that the private sector is picking up most of the tab. That means that except for a few vanity projects, these monies will be efficiently spent and show a return, with less impact to the public purse than if the government bankrolled the whole event.

The funding of sports in any society is out of the surpluses that economy can generate. The bigger the economy the more they can fund sports.

Governments used to see sports as a way for the  youth to expend energy and not pay attention to politics, but in the last few decades or so the rise of professional sports has shown that sport can be bona fide economic activity, which while making the youth busy can afford them real livelihoods. In a few instances beyond their wildest dreams or if they had taken the traditional white collar career path. Potential gold medalist Carlos Alcaraz has already made about $8million in prize money this year alone.

  And he is only 21.

But these suplurses especially from the private sector, are far from being charitable handouts. The private sector wants to see a return, often in terms of marketing benefits.

In Uganda where our sports administrations are volunteer based, it’s hard for the private sector to pour money into sports, because they cannot see a return on their investment.

Apart from regulatory oversight, sports does not need government to thrive. The US the world’s greatest sporting nation has no sports ministry. And yet they have sent just over 500 athletes to the Olympics.

The US sports associations have become adept at creating sports events, marketing them and selling them to corporate America. Basketball, American football and baseball are now multibillion dollar enterprises. At the Olympics the US is dominant in gymnastics, swimming, track and field.

And after conquering America they are spreading their wings abroad.

Our sports officials – assuming they want the best for their sports, would be wise to take a leaf from the US model of financing sport and its applicability in a country where there are more pressing needs than sports to fund.

So while I ooh and aah at the athletes performance, never mind marveling what it took to get into that demigodesque (see the women volleyballers) shape, a look under the hood at the economics of sport is just as entertaining if not more so, for me.