Local soccer has to start marketing the game to a much broader target audience in order to grow significantly. Presently your typical match-attending fans are predominantly black males. There is a large untapped market of females and children of all ages.

The problem is that match-days are perceived to be very macho male events, which have the potential to turn violent. These occasions also have a history of poor organisation, which has led to numerous deaths due to stadiums being over-filled – here the Ellis Park disaster where dozens of fans lost their lives comes to mind.

These perceptions and realities need to change.  Match-days need to become high-quality entertainment for the whole family. They need to be events where fathers can take their wives and kids with total peace of mind. This means that there must be security and order from the moment they arrive at the stadium precinct.

Also, the feature match should really be the highlight of a whole day of entertainment for the family. This would enable the business to maximise its revenue from catering and merchandising. Currently people tend to arrive just as the match is about to start and leave almost immediately after, unless they are in VIP suites off course.

There should be a published matchday programme that starts in the morning so that the occasion becomes a festival. There should be a variety of first class family entertainment and sponsors’ promotions, which will benefit the sponsors, the team and the fans. Everything should run on time and according to the programme. These matchday festivities should be assigned to the top events managers in order to create the spectacle. Imagine how many cool drinks, sweets, replica shirts (for all ages and sexes), hotdogs, burgers, ice cream, you name it, will be sold.

This means that the soccer business will also need to satisfy all the fans’ needs such as having dedicated areas where mothers can change diapers at ease for example. This isn’t something new – some baseball arenas in the USA already offer such facilities. At a strategic level this will require clubs to reposition their brands and communicate their new, more fan-oriented approaches. Only by moving in this directions can the soccer business maximise its business opportunities and raise the games profile. This would also attract even more sponsors to the game to the benefit of all soccer stakeholders.

About the author

Lennox Nhando wrote 61 articles on this blog.

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