The just ended weekend was a busy one for the eleven lines. On a quiet Saturday afternoon, the legendary Super sport 4 was revisited. This time around, Kaizer Chiefs aka ‘Amakhosi’ aka the Phefeni ‘glamour boys’ visited the cold region of Cape Town to face Benni McCarthy’s Cape Town City aka ‘the citizens’, formerly known as Mpumalanga Black Aces. Some by now will conclude that the eleven lines’ heart belongs to the golden half of Soweto. Of course they are right. Anyway, the men in gold overcame then citizens 6-5 on post-match penalties, to the delight of the eleven lines.
America’s National Basketball Association(NBA) kicks off in a day’s time. The eleven lines simply cannot wait, them being avid fanatics of 2014 champions, San Antonio Spurs. So to remove this ‘can’t keep calm feeling’, they revisited old NBA matches from their Transcend hard drive. In there was all highlights of the 2018-2019 season, won by the Toronto Raptors. Throwbacks are always thrilling.
What captivated the eleven lines most were the way this basketball league is organized. Just to mention a few scenarios, there is a timeout sponsor, scoreboard sponsor, halftime break sponsor, match sponsor and stands sponsor, just to mention a few. These respective slots are allocated to different companies willing to take part in the match.
We may also want to look at soccer. The eleven lines would have loved to use the term football but were pegged back as they did not want to confuse their audience with ‘American football’. Anyway as the weekend was coming to its eventual end, Bitter rivals of English football met in an epic encounter. Manchester United and Liverpool renewed their rivalry. As the eleven lines were typing, the ‘red devils’ led 1-0. Whatever happened afterwards, the eleven lines do not want to know. Their focus about these two sides is the way they, just like most sides in English football have embraced advertising.
You see, Manchester United are owned by the Glazer Family. Their kit sponsor is car maker is Chevrolet. Their shoulder kit sponsor is Kohler. Their stadium seat sponsor is Audi, training kit is DHL and their training ground is a property of professional global services provider AON. On the other hand, Liverpool have Standard Chartered as their kit sponsors, Life Insurance provider AxA as their training kit sponsor and Bet Victor as their stadium stand sponsor. The eleven lines can never stress enough, multiple ventures in the sports business arena is profitable to both the investors and all other stakeholders.
Our football leagues, for the past years have been marred with sponsorship woes. Only a handful of teams in the country have stable sponsorship. Furthermore, just a few companies have taken part in gaining slots of sponsoring in the field of play. It is sad to see.
The eleven lines are of the view that if sports advertising is diversified, giving slots to different organizations to showcase their products and services, we can surely open a new chapter in Malawian sports. We could invest in our respective teams, using them as a base of our advertising. We could do more for our players and many involved stakeholders in different sports disciplines of our country. For sure we can never be the same.
It is our authorities who have what it takes to spearhead this…. but will they? ffffffff
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