Do we have a football industry in Botswana? Maybe yes, but I personally don’t think so. We do have the sport of football; it is loved and attracts significant emotional investment. But if football is an industry, we need to scrutinize the product, understand who the customer is and identify where the value chain lies. The absence of any one of these elements means we cannot truly claim to have a football industry. We have only had a football administration system that stages competitions. A football industry should be an ecosystem that derives economic value from sporting performance and the emotional attachment of fans.
I envisage the industry as a scenario in which players produce quality football performances in a well-organized and entertaining competition, attracting strong audiences and, consequently, creating commercial value.
The football industry should be an ecosystem consisting of clubs that produce and package the product; players and coaches who deliver sporting performances; leagues that regulate competitions; stadia that provide the physical experience; broadcasters and digital platforms that distribute the product; and supporters who primarily consume it. Sponsors buy access to the audience, which, in turn, should generate positive returns for them.
An industry cannot be defined by how much money is invested in it; there must be a value chain. Someone should produce something of value that others want and are willing to pay for. The money should then be reinvested to improve the product and attract more customers, creating more value and more investment. The cycle continues, and that is what constitutes a football industry.
Most importantly, there should be money circulating through the system. A club should not be a parasite that survives on donations. It should be in a position where it has a product, knows its audience and is ready to demonstrate its commercial value—something businesses should be willing to pay to access. This is what makes an industry.
Now, the final question for the football industry should be: who is the customer? Who should consume this product?
Football has several customers, but central to all of them is the supporter. These are the primary consumers of the football product. They buy match-day tickets, club merchandise, digital content and make other purchases. These primary consumers also determine the value of the product for other customers, such as sponsors and broadcasters.
The sponsor is the commercial customer. Sponsors do not necessarily care about what happens during the 90 minutes; their primary interest is the audience. They buy access to that audience. This is where a critical transformation is needed for most clubs in Botswana. Rather than preparing a P5 million budget and attempting to persuade sponsors to donate, a club should be in a position to say to a potential sponsor:
“We have 40,000 supporters, 15,000 monthly digital followers, 10,000 match-day attendees and a particular demographic. Here is what your brand can access through us.”
In building this industry, we should stop treating football as a competition that needs funding and start viewing it as an industry that must create value. We should build a football value chain by defining and packaging the product, understanding our customers and placing them at the centre of football development, while making clubs commercially accountable.
This is not begging for donations; it is selling a well-packaged product. The other critical customer is the broadcaster. We should be concerned that we cannot sell our product to DStv or any equally reputable broadcaster. A broadcaster buys rights so that it can monetize the audience through advertising, subscriptions and other commercial arrangements.
We keep wondering: how much money does our league need? How much should sponsors fork out? We need a paradigm shift and should instead ask ourselves what football actually produces. Where is the product?
An industry cannot be defined by how much money is invested in it; there must be a value chain. Someone should produce something of value that others want and are willing to pay for. The money should then be reinvested to improve the product and attract more customers, creating more value and more investment. The cycle continues, and that is what constitutes a football industry.
In building this industry, we should stop treating football as a competition that needs funding and start viewing it as an industry that must create value. We should build a football value chain by defining and packaging the product, understanding our customers and placing them at the centre of football development, while making clubs commercially accountable.
We should worry less about where the next million pula will come from and more about building a system capable of generating the next million pula.
