Ken Borland

Jacques Faul is the new chief executive of Titans cricket, taking over from acting appointee Aniel Soma, who covered so efficiently in the wake of Elise Lombard’s tragic passing.

It may be considered a step down in some quarters for Faul, who was the acting CEO of Cricket South Africa for a year, but it is a return to franchise cricket that the former Western Transvaal player is excited about.

“I learnt a lot while I was with CSA, it was difficult, but we achieved what we set out to do, which was keeping the operations going and getting the sponsors back. It has also given me a more balanced view of cricket administration, having always been on the affiliate’s side of the fence before then. I wanted to stay in cricket and I want to make the Titans the best franchise in the world. It’s a fantastic organisation and I’m very privileged,” Faul said.

It has not been the best of timing for Faul with the Titans’ awful season a blow to their reputation as one of the country’s leading franchises. But the former North-West CEO has no doubts he can help get the amalgamation of the Northerns and Easterns cricket unions back up to the top.

“I want to take the organisation to a new level, but you can only react in four ways strategically when you move into a venture, and this applies from a pub to an accounting firm. You can stop, start, continue or change things.

“The Titans is a great organisation, so I’ll be continuing a lot of things. But my role demands that I stop, start and change certain things. Issues such as stadia and financial stability are always dynamic,” Faul said.

Faul played a major role in elevating the status of cricket in Potchefstroom when he became CEO in 2003, but he was actually brought up in Klerksdorp, where he played club cricket for 21 years and was elected president of the club when he was just 26.

Had he not been called into administration at such a young age, and shown such commercial vision, Faul might well have ended up coaching.

He has a Level III certificate and an academy at Klerksdorp High School and describes coaching as “what I enjoy most”.

The SABC announced on Wednesday that they would only be providing live coverage of the limited-overs and T20 internationals between South Africa and New Zealand, and Cricket South Africa (CSA) are set to lose R20 million as a result.

The only coverage SABC are willing to provide of the two Tests against the Black Caps will be two highlights packages per day and, as a result,  CSA will only receive R11 million – R3 million from the SABC and R8 million from advertising time that has already been bought by the sponsors – for the television rights, when their actual value is R30 million.

“We are disappointed that the Tests will receive limited coverage and, although we are committed to the free-to-air broadcaster as part of our development mandate, we took a substantial cut in our broadcast rights fee to ensure we can take cricket to the South African public,” acting CSA chief executive Jacques Faul said in a statement released on Wednesday.

But behind the scenes, the cricket governing body is seething over the SABC’s unwillingness to fulfil their Icasa-stipulated mandate of providing live coverage of sporting events that are in the national interest. South Africa have been the number one ranked team in Test cricket since August, but the matches against New Zealand are their first on home soil since winning the pre-eminent ranking.

CSA sources told Business Day that Faul is so upset over the deal that he had to be talked out of considering whether to step down as CEO.

“The decision to broadcast these matches is a clear indication that we take our mandate seriously and we are cognisant that the public of South Africa deserve to see their cricket team – which is rated number one in the world in Test cricket and also highly in the other formats of the game.

“The SABC will continue to serve the public of South Africa and be true to their mandate of educating, informing and entertaining them,” SABC spokesman Sizwe Nzimande said.

CSA are now determined to handle their television rights differently next summer, with SuperSport likely to be offered exclusive rights and paying considerably more for them.

As one high-ranking CSA official said: “We’ve been falling over backwards to try and get cricket on free-to-air television because we know how vital that is to developing the game, especially amongst the disadvantaged communities. But now we’ve sold the rights to SABC at nearly one-third of their value. Where do they think most of our money to run our development programmes  comes from? It’s from selling the television rights and now we’ve taken a big knock in that department.”

Negotiations with the SABC had been ongoing for the last two months through world leading television rights company IMG, while CSA had also tried to get Sascoc and the sports ministry to intervene on their behalf as Faul acknowledges the importance of cricket being on the majority of TVs in the country.

“To grow our game, we need cricket on free-to-air. We see it as an obligation to all South Africans that they can see their number one team in action,” he said earlier this week.

http://www.bdlive.co.za/sport/cricket/2012/12/20/cricket-south-africa-seethes-over-sabc-test-rights-snub

The SABC looks set to deny millions of South Africans live coverage of international cricket this summer despite Cricket South Africa (CSA) offering them broadcast rights at massively discounted rates.

By late yesterday, the SABC had still not accepted CSA’s latest proposal which involved them broadcasting South Africa’s home internationals this summer for a minimal fee, but with the state broadcaster paying over the money companies have already committed to be broadcast sponsors.

“It would be an absolute disaster if the South African cricket-loving public don’t get to see the number one Test team in the world in action. To grow the game, we need it on free-to-air television. We see it as an obligation to take cricket to all South Africans. It will be very, very sad if cricket is not on SABC,” CSA acting chief executive Jacques Faul told Business Day on Monday.

CSA have been in negotiation with the SABC for two months, through IMG, the global leaders in televised sports productions, but so far the broadcaster has just offered to screen highlights.

While CSA are desperate to ensure free-to-air broadcasts, there is no commercial benefit for them to do so. In fact, it costs them significant amounts of money as SuperSport would pay considerably more than they currently do if they had exclusive rights.

In previous years, the SABC have signed a broadcast agreement as late as on the morning of the first international match, but CSA insiders now believe even this won’t happen. This would be in contravention of the SABC’s mandate as stipulated by Icasa, the South African communications regulator, which compels the national broadcaster to show sporting events that are in the national interest.

The amount of money CSA’s regular sponsors have already paid for advertising time on the SABC would cover about half the rights fee the cricket governing body is seeking from the broadcaster. CSA would then supplement this amount by selling further advertising themselves. But even this proposal has so far failed to win over the SABC.

The home international season begins on Friday in Durban with the first of three T20 internationals against New Zealand.

The Willowton Group, through their Sunfoil brand, announced a massive increase in their sponsorship of cricket on Monday via a four-year deal that covers all first-class long format games, including home Tests.

Sunfoil became a sponsor during troubled times for Cricket South Africa last year, stepping in to back the Test series and ODIs last season when not many other corporates were interested. But with CSA’s reputation almost back to its best, the sunflower cooking oil brand has increased its sponsorship to R14 million a year, seven times as much as the previous deal.

“A lot of people thought that we were a one-season wonder and that was part of our motivation to continue our sponsorship. We wanted to show that we were not just catching things on the cheap, we’re in cricket for the long haul and it’s all about giving back for us,” Shoaib Moosa, the sales and marketing director of the Willowton Group, told supersport.com at the sponsorship announcement at the Wanderers on Monday.

Sunfoil will also play a major role in domestic cricket, and will sponsor both the four-day franchise competition and the three-day amateur tournament.

SuperSport have been the sponsors of the four-day tournament for 16 years, the SuperSport Series replacing the old Castle Cup in the 1996/97 season, and CSA acting chief executive Jacques Faul praised the broadcasters for not standing in the way of their wish to bundle all long-format cricket together.

“We have to thank SuperSport for allowing us to take this sponsorship to Sunfoil because we wanted to group all the long-format cricket together. SuperSport have been a wonderful supporter of South African cricket and they will continue to be our broadcasting partner,” Faul said.

Brandon Foot, SuperSport’s head of acquisitions and legal said: “SuperSport is very proud to have sponsored the SuperSport Series and to have contributed to this important nursery of test match cricket. As the World of Champions steps aside from this role, SuperSport remains committed to CSA as its production and broadcast partner in all formats of the game, both domestically and internationally. SuperSport will also retain its interests in franchise and other cricket in South Africa.”

The Willowton Group also have a rich history of involvement in development cricket with their highly successful township programme in KZN being extended to Gauteng last year, while their cash for boundaries incentive in the 2011/12 tests raised R700 000 for their bursary fund, which now supports over a dozen children.

“The fruits of our involvement in cricket are seen where it matters most – at grassroots level – and hopefully we can produce some top-class cricketers from our development programme. But I will be happy even if we produce one doctor because of our bursaries and provision has been made for this programme to be expanded on a national level,” Moosa said.

The Pietermaritzburg-based businessman admitted that his company’s involvement with the senior national team had certainly benefited Sunfoil as well.

“Twelve months ago, if you asked the public, no particular brand of cooking oil would have come to mind. But now, the exposure and awareness and turnaround in volume of Sunfoil has been absolutely amazing and has assisted us in our goal of becoming the market-leader in South Africa,” Moosa said.

The success of that initial sponsorship deal means long-format cricket now has passionate backers from the Proteas down to the amateur teams, not forgetting Sunfoil’s key role at junior level as well.

Having secured yet another major vote of confidence in the way they have set about restoring the faith of corporates, Cricket South Africa are now looking for someone to take on another hugely valuable property in their twenty20 rights, both domestically and internationally, including for the Proteas team sponsor. The South African national team will provide a wonderful shop window in the ICC World T20 in Sri Lanka in September, with the normal rules being relaxed to allow sponsors’ names on their shirts.

http://www.supersport.com/cricket/domestic-cricket/news/120730/Massive_increase_in_test_sponsorship_for_CSA