Ken Borland

Controversial Cricket South Africa independent director Dr Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw’s tweet which appeared to threaten sponsors Momentum has landed her in hot water with the sports federation apologising to the financial services provider, distancing themselves from her statement and reporting her to their Social and Ethics Committee.

Momentum announced on Tuesday that they will not renew their sponsorship of men’s one-day cricket with CSA next April, but will honour their contract as title sponsors of the national women’s side through to April 2023. Kula-Ameyaw then sent out a tweet on Tuesday night saying: “Momentum forgets that we invest hundreds millions in Momentum in our SOE investments and pension funds. I remember asking for the BBBEE certificate in my other board. Just check before you make any irrational decision.”

Kula-Ameyaw erred in casting aspersions about Momentum’s transformation credentials because they have had Level I B-BBEE status for the last two years. And her antagonistic approach to sponsors could be seriously damaging to CSA as they desperately try and find new backers during these tough economic times. Given the Board’s existing lack of credibility and now this social media blunder by someone who is tipped to become the Lead Independent Director, even though she was only appointed to the Board on an interim basis in May, more current and prospective sponsors are likely to say getting involved in cricket is not their cup of tea.

“CSA sincerely apologises to Momentum for the unfortunate and unwarranted tweets made by one of our Board members, in her personal capacity. CSA wishes to reiterate that Dr Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw did not act in her professional position as a non-executive board member of CSA. While we respect the personal views of all South Africans, CSA wishes to distance itself from the articulations made by Dr Kula-Ameyaw on Twitter.

“We further wish to reiterate that CSA does not ascribe to the views expressed regarding Momentum and we sincerely value the benefits Momentum and all our sponsors bring in making cricket accessible and inclusive for all South Africans. We thank Momentum for the substantial contributions they have made towards cricket upliftment and the milestones we achieved through their sponsorship,” acting CSA president Beresford Williams said in a statement released on Wednesday.

The CSA Members Council, which has been flexing its muscles against the Board of late, has also reported Kula-Ameyaw’s behaviour to the Social and Ethics Committee.

“CSA is taking this matter very seriously and in light of the reputational damage potentially caused, CSA’s Members’ Council has referred the matter to the Social and Ethics Committee and once all internal processes have been completed, the necessary corrective action will be taken,” the statement said.

Momentum were also baffled by Kula-Ameyaw’s jibe at their transformation efforts.

“We’re not exactly sure what Dr Kula-Ameyaw meant by the comment, since we have been working really hard to transform as a company. We achieved Level 1 Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment status two years ago, and have retained this status. Our B-BBEE certificate is available on our website.

“In spite of the comment, we are not reconsidering our relationship with CSA. We look forward to continuing our support of the Momentum Proteas national women’s team on their journey to success,” Head of Sponsorships Carel Bosman said.

Kula-Ameyaw has also in the last week on Twitter accused critics of “brown envelope tendencies”, praised the EFF and seemed to indicate she wielded “power” by interfering in selection matters.

Nielsen Sports, the provider of analytics for the sports industry, recently gave their annual presentation on the biggest trends in sports business and the two major talking points over the last year are the rise of e-Sports and the fact that sports bodies and their sponsors have to know who their fans are in this rapidly evolving marketplace.

Their research shows that, on average, only 10-15% of any sport’s fans are actually ‘game experts’ – people who have intimate knowledge of the rules, history, players, tactics etc. So any sports body or sponsor that only targets this section of the fan base are clearly missing out, for instance, on the 30-35% of ‘connection fans’ – for them it’s about the big event and they are the people packing out the stadia for Pink Day, the Cape Town Sevens rugby or the Durban July.

In the past, the relationship between a sport and a brand was based on the sponsor wanting visibility and the sport just wanting money. But this relationship is now much broader and the rights a sports body sells need to be more flexible and more tailored to their specific partners. Sponsors these days want to own stories and content rules in this digital age in which internet advertising spend overtook that for TV worldwide last year.

It was disappointing to hear that our traditional sports like rugby and cricket are battling to grow in this environment. In South Africa, 25% fewer millennials are interested in rugby, and cricket has seen the same drop in support.

The fastest growing sport in the world is e-Sports, which is basically what professional, competitive gaming is called, and unfortunately, rugby and cricket just don’t have games on the market that are good enough. Research has shown that there is a strong crossover between people who play the virtual game on their computers and supporting the actual ‘live’ sport. For instance, Fifa’s eWorldCup drew seven million gamers last year and Formula One enjoyed similar success with their eSports Final, the winner of which gained a one-year contract as a simulator driver for McLaren.

That e-Sports is rapidly evolving into a major player in the sports industry is shown by the fact that one-third of all their fans came onboard in the last year and they are typically millennial men with money to spend. Which means major global brands like Gillette, C-Smart and Mercedes are moving into that space, the higher LSM also attracting sponsors like Audi and Mountain Dew. Gaming is a $32 billion industry now and at the competitive level it is a mega-production, a whole show with adverts, sponsored decks and kids packed into stadia.

This year’s Overwatch League features 12 franchises based in cities like Boston, London and Shanghai who paid $20 million each to participate. The broadcast rights were sold for $90 million and the average audience is 280 000 per minute.

Speaking of broadcast rights, this field has also become extraordinarily broad for sponsors and sports bodies. Pay TV’s influence is still stable, but there are disruptors now in the picture, especially tech giants like Amazon and Facebook and even Twitter.

The cellphone has become a way of life and we are living in a mobile-first generation. Although high data costs hold us back in South Africa, 20% of local football viewers watch via internet streams, with 69% of those people watching the game live and 42% of those watching the whole game.

Rugby has 25% of its viewers streaming the game, 68% of that watching live and 48% for the whole game; cricket’s figures are 22% streaming, 78% of that live and 40% watching the full game.

The sports industry is certainly a very fluid environment for rights-holders and sponsors to get their heads around.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-kzn/20180623/282484299488829

Increased crowd figures and an enthusiastic response from the sponsors marked the end of an era at Sun City as the final 30-man Nedbank Golf Challenge was completed at the weekend.

Next year the tournament will shift away from the first weekend in December for the first time since its inception in 1981, moving to mid-November as it becomes the penultimate event in the European Tour’s Race to Dubai Finals Series and will be played with a 72-man field and an increase in prizemoney to reflect its more elite status.

But the traditional Nedbank Golf Challenge went out with a bang at Sun City over the weekend, Australian Marc Leishman’s comfortable victory being watched by hordes of people.

According to tournament director Alastair Roper, crowds steadily improved through the week. Thursday’s opening day was watched by a few hundred people less than usual, but then there was a 1.5% increase on Friday and the improvement over the weekend was apparent as 12.8% more people came through the gates on Saturday compared to last year, and 4.7% more on Sunday.

“Overall the crowd figures were better and I think that was largely related to the field, people felt it was very good and provided a diversity of golfers,” Roper told The Citizen on Monday.

“What also bodes well for the event as it heads into a new format is that there was even more enthusiasm from the sponsors, with a number of them saying they are going to have to double the size of their facilities for next year.”

The Nedbank Golf Challenge has always been a marker for the beginning of the Christmas holidays and an end-of-year bash for corporate South Africa, but that might change with the tournament starting on November 10.

“It is one of my fears that the crowds might not come, but we will only find out the impact on that once we experience the new date. Universities and schools will also be in the middle of exams. Already the European Tour are talking to the guys in Dubai to maybe have the Tour Championship a bit later, possibly moving into our old spot in the first week of December. There are problems with Thanksgiving, when a lot of Americans in the United Arab Emirates won’t be around to watch golf, and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but the dates will hopefully be massaged a bit,” Roper said.

“A lot of things will have to change because of the impact of having 72 players, there will have to be bigger facilities for them. Even the media centre needs to be looked at because there will be greater demands with it being the penultimate event on the Race to Dubai. I think we may have to use some properties close by for specific facilities like caddies’ accommodation,” Roper said.

By their own admission, Cricket South Africa’s newest sponsors, Blue Label Telecoms, “have not really been out there” in the world of sport, which is surprising given that they are clearly passionate about it and have one of the most amazing collections of memorabilia you could hope to see.

The Blue Label head office in Sandton boasts a spectacular collection of cricket, motor racing, rugby, boxing, golf, tennis and cycling memorabilia that is a prominent feature of their first two floors.

CSA announced Blue Label as the new national team sponsors for T20 cricket from Saturday’s opening match against England through to the end of the Pakistan series in March in Sandton on Thursday.

“It’s a big step for Blue Label because we haven’t really been out there that much, although we’ve been behind South African sport for a long time,” CEO and co-founder Brett Levy said. “We have no doubt that we will complement the South African cricket brand.”

While the initial sponsorship is just a short-term deal, there is no doubt there is an outstanding fit between Blue Label – the leading provider of prepaid tokens and transactions in cellular communications, electricity, water and bus tickets, in developing economies such as South Africa, India, Mexcio and Nigeria – and twenty20 cricket and a longer term involvement in the sport is likely to be announced soon.

“The deal is short-term for now, but Blue Label have the first right of renewal and I’m sure the relationship will last longer than just until the end of the Pakistan series. If it’s a good fit, maybe they can take the whole space and move into domestic T20 as well,” CSA acting chief executive Jacques Faul said.

Blue Label themselves are in no doubt that they have much more to offer South African cricket.

“We view this as a long-term partnership, not a sponsorship, for many years to come. It’s easy just to give money, but it’s difficult to build a business together. But we are a company that’s about relationships, we touch about 21 million people’s lives every month, and we share a passion for people with Cricket South Africa. They say you are known by the company you keep and we are absolutely delighted to be with CSA,” Blue Label chief technical officer David Fraser said.

“In the next six months, we want to put together a long-term relationship once we make sure it works for both parties. It’s endless what we can do together and I can see this running indefinitely into the future,” Levy added.

Blue Label are big in India through their subsidiary company Oxigen and, with the South African cricket team also being very popular in the world’s second most populous country, the partnership could bloom explosive success.

With their larney near-field communications solutions technology, Blue Label are also hoping to “create a unique customer engagement model” with CSA’s “wonderful fan base”, according to Fraser.

Unfortunately for them, the ICC World T20 is not part of the deal because the game’s governing body disallowed their involvement due to a supposed clash with cellphone giants Reliance Mobile, who Blue Label supply airtime services to in India. But the proudly South African company should soon start getting substantial exposure in the global village with their logo prominently displayed on the Proteas’ T20 shirts in all other matches.

Faul agreed that the deal was yet another vote of confidence in CSA and their steps in the right direction after the Gerald Majola bonus scandal.

“It’s a very positive sign that corporate South Africa are looking more favourably at us. We want to move on and it’s great to have fantastic brands behind us that are so big in Africa and worldwide,” Faul said.

“The past is behind us and we’re starting fresh. This is a big endorsement of Cricket South Africa,” Levy agreed.

The deal is believed to be worth in the region of 12-15 million rand, although this value could double in coming years as Blue Label assist CSA in engaging more profitably with their fans.

http://www.supersport.com/cricket/sa-team/news/120906/New_sponsor_for_Proteas_T20_squad