At the heart of sports and broadcasters’ enduring love affair is the sports’ unmatched ability to generate extraordinary eyeballs. In the US of the top highest viewed broadcasts only 6 broadcasts were not sports related i.e. the State of the Union, The Royal Wedding, This is Us, SCOTUS Announcement, The Academy Awards, 60 Minutes with Stormy Daniels and The Annual Thanksgiving Parade Sport. For broadcasters if you want consumers on your platforms you need sport and in the US that primarily American football so dominant it is that a staggering 37 of the top 50 broadcasts last year were football matches. This is why broadcasters will continue to pay a massive premium for this because it’s a magnet for eyeballs. The UK’s largest TV audiences last year were from the FIFA World Cup helped by England run to the semi-finals and The Winter Olympics. Both ITV and BBC reached 21 million and 17 million viewers for England’s games. A total of 53 and 44 million people (aged 4+) watched at least 3 consecutive minutes of each event. The even years tend to do well in sports in these markets because of the Olympics (winter and summer), FIFA World Cup, Euros and Ryder Cup all of which take place in even years. All in all Sport along with Entertainment, drama, documentaries and news is in the top 5 of the most watched genres ahead of movies, hobbies and current affairs. Here’s a number that shows why sport is still king of content kings in the 97% of every man, woman, and child i.e., the whole of the UK watched a live sport broadcast in 2018. That is why TV channels will continue to pay top dollar for the sport. Australia to 10 broadcasts includes 4 sporting events two being Aussie Rules events, a Rugby league event and Commonwealth games. The phenomenon repeats itself in every market that considers itself a sports market and is worth comparing ourselves to.
This brings us to South Africa. And why our problems are much deeper than some of us care to admit. Let’s recap on sports as a commercial enterprise. It produces a product that fans who want to watch are prepared to pay for it. In the process sports generates revenue from fans who buy tickets, merchandise as well as food and beverage at these events. Broadcasters provide revenue as they seek to use this content to attract and retain audiences and they generate advertising revenues from brands wanting to engage the sport’s fans watching sport on the broadcaster channels. Finally, sports make money from brands that want to partner with the league and/ or its cubs directly over and above those that connect through the broadcasters to engage the fans while watching sports on TV and other channels or at the stadium. Sports sustainability is therefore in its ability to continue to generate increasing numbers of fans who attend matches and tune in for its TV broadcasts.
That in a nutshell is how sports intersects with commerce. What happened therefore when the sport no longer attracts fans to attend its matches in increasing numbers and is unable to maintain, let alone increase its TV audiences? What happens when sport is no longer indispensable to broadcasters the single biggest source of revenue for sport? Well, the broadcasters, and advertisers will start to review their investments and that is the challenge facing sport in this country and football in particular. There is a special dire consequence for football here because unlike rugby and cricket, which also generated a sizeable portion of their broadcast income from international broadcasters, football does not have that luxury.
Today, the biggest broadcaster by eyeballs the SABC is effectively saying I will take less of your product frankly because it is no longer that important in my audience strategy. A look at their numbers tells us why, football hardly generates a broadcast that makes it in their top 20 most-watched broadcasts. In fact, over the last 2 years, not one sports broadcast has made the SABC top 10 list and only 10 (approximately 5 broadcasts a season) have made the top 20 programs and nowhere close to the most watched broadcasts in South Africa. Pay-Tv’s DSTV whose sports channel Supersport spends even more money on sports rights barely gets a sports broadcast in its top 30 shows. The country’s biggest sports event by attendance, the Soweto Derby barely tops 5 million viewers across all soccer channels. While the biggest broadcast Uzalo regularly tops 10 million viewers and a broadcast. The picture is even more distressing for rugby and cricket. However, as indicated these also have global broadcaster interest which football does not.
So what now for South African sports and football in particular? While there are some challenges in South African football, the game remains very healthy in several key areas. It remains the game of the masses, has some well-run and powerful brands including the league and its powerful member clubs, has massive untapped opportunities in youth and women development, and has excellent broadcast and corporate partners. That said there are some real dark clouds on the horizon. The football leadership will need to embark on a significant step change in how it structures its commercial and broadcast rights. The league and its member clubs need to invest in strategies to re-embed their clubs in the communities and bring the fans back. This is the single biggest challenge facing the game. Simply put if they are not watching in the stadium they are not watching on TV. What’s the one thing they need to do? Bring the fans back to the centre of everything you do that is my message to football leaders.
