I know that a lot people enjoy the memes and the jokes flying around on the poor state of Kaizer Chiefs’s on field performances. As a former footballer whose professional debut match was against the would be champions Kaizer Chiefs way back then, I too chuckle at some of these. After all it’s somehow fun when the mighty and powerful remind us all that they too can be fallible. That said, however, it should not be lost on any of us that big sports clubs are often a barometer of the health of the game as a whole. A couple of years ago in 2017 to be exact Sky Sports, UK’s pay TV broadcaster and the biggest single contributor to Premier League revenue pot announced that it had seen a 14% drop in its TV audiences in the previous season. If you understand how important TV audiences are to sports media value, then you will appreciate how scary that would have been for both the broadcaster and the league. There is a number of factors that contributed to that but chief amongst those, some argued, was that for 2 consecutive seasons the biggest and most successful clubs in England, Manchester United and Liverpool had not been competitive enough. United had missed the much sought-after top four finish in the league for a second straight season. While Liverpool squeezed into the top 4th spot. When the two giants don’t play well, fewer people are watching and / or interested in replica, the attendances are lower and so it goes. A few years ago with Tiger Woods having taken time off to sort out his health and personal issues, the PGA popularity, attendances and TV viewership numbers took a significant hit. Though rival players may have seen a change in their individual fortunes with the biggest name off the course, the reality is that the game was not just poorer for it but the economy of golf as a whole suffered … significantly.
One of the golden rules in organised sport is that it makes the most money from TV because sport is the magnet for consumer eyeballs. Sport also makes money from fans attending in numbers and being excited about buying all sorts of ream replica and services. In this country they do not come bigger than Kaizer Chiefs. Simply put Chiefs is to South African football what Tiger Woods is to golf. It delivers the crowds, it drives the television viewership and i all the commercial levers in South African club football and may international football as well. They are the plum fixture for everyone in the league. When the fixtures come out at the start of the season, the first game all other club owners and fans look for is Kaizer Chiefs at home because that is their biggest pay day in match day business. The only team that never plays away from home i.e. wherever they play, whoever they play, they will have more fans than opposition team home or away. Of the over 20 million adults in South Africa who claim to be interested in football (according to Nielsen Sport), the vast majority of those would either be fans of Chiefs of have a soft spot for Amakhosi okuthula noxolo.
So what happens when Chiefs is not playing well and not competitive for prolonged periods of time like it is now. Chiefs is not just the most popular club in the country but the most successful club in domestic professional football history having won 44 trophies in 50 years. However, only 5 in the last 10 years which was already unusual and the 0 trophies in the last 5 years. It is the longest trophy drought in the history of the club. Such is the impact and the size of Chiefs’ contribution that I can say quite categorically that part of the decline we have seen in TV audiences and match attendances is most probably linked to that. If Chiefs is not playing or not playing well then no one is interested.
Don’t take my word for it. Here are the facts according the analysis of Broadcast Research Council of South Africa (BRC) numbers of the 2017/18 season, 62% of all the most watched domestic leagues matches involved Chiefs. The following year 2018/19 season the numbers are not too dissimilar. The graph below shows a similar pattern also emerges from the most recent 2019/20 season with 20 of the 30 most watched domestic football league matches in SA involving Chiefs and this was the year when Chiefs looked like they will finally end the long league trophy drought. As they often say when the USA (may be these days this is China but …anyway) sneezes the world catches the cold. The same can be said for Chiefs and South African football.
There is no doubt that Chiefs is sneezing right now and has been for a while, look at the numbers that matter in sports. The fans attendances have continued to decline, the TV audiences numbers (granted these are also impacted by the significant decline in the number of matches shown on SABC) and overall commercial fortunes of the game are also down. I would argue all this is linked to the long term health of Kaizer Chiefs. One of the ways sport secures itself is by ensuring that those who “bring in the the most to the table” are protected from these declines. That is why the revenue share models of every major sport tend to give more to its biggest clubs and players. It is simply because the collective suffers when the biggest and most important value drivers stutter. This is a story for another day.
Today, I leave you with this thought a competitive PSL is great for football in this country and commercial values of the league. Within that nothing comes close to the importance of a competitive Kaizer Chiefs in driving TV audiences and thus massive TV deals and sponsorships not just for the league but the individual clubs. There is a reason why for every sponsor and broadcaster, the real nightmare is having Chiefs knocked out early the competition. The suits at Parktown will tell you that looking for a new sponsor for its league cup formerly Telkom Knock Out is far harder with a limping Chiefs than with a vibrant one. Unless there is significant change in Chiefs’ form, South African football’s commercial fortunes are headed for a bumpy ride. So while it may be fun to make the jokes about the poor state of Chiefs, as sport business entrepreneur I know that the economic impact of the current form to the game as a whole is no laughing matter.
