Marketers are the Trump Card

I publish twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays. Most of the work is written in the afternoon, but last Friday I started in the morning. The day of my work came out as Thursday. The reason is the time difference between South Africa and United States of America where this blog is hosted.

I strongly believe that basketball can and will become the number two sports in South Africa after soccer. It will become the number indoor sport. I was tempted to make some comparisons when preparing for this article. But as you might notice, we cannot even make comparisons between soccer and rugby. One reason is that soccer is played across the world, it is a sport of billions. Rugby is a minority sport. In South Africa, it gets what I will call emotional sponsorship since it is financed by predominantly Afrikaans institutions. Afrikaners will do anything to protect rugby and it seems it will stay as the number two sport in the country for some time.

I have been studying the happenings around the Slam Dunk basketball magazine on channel one (SABC 1) for a few Sundays now. The show has attracted on average 680 996 viewers this year. It is produced for those who are 16 years and over, those that have the influence on what parents must buy. The programme attracted only two 30 second adverts this past show, bringing somewhat R20 000 to the SABC. Perhaps the change it made the broadcaster is due to the audience rating ( AR) average of 3.2 which translates to some 15% of adults who watch the programme. Basketball gets not more than 17 minutes coverage on SABC. But coverage is coverage.

So, the marketers do not think of selling their product to such viewership. Or is it the hype of the world football events in the country? Is it the emotions people have for their sports? Is it the attitude that people also can protect their sport as in cricket? There are many questions we may ask on the reasons money is going to other sporting codes. One thing stands, marketers control where the money goes. It is clear that marketers are interested in the content that will make them a lot of money. The kids' programmes are making more money for the broadcaster than basketball. So does late night rather graveyard programmes on television. As a basketball community, we just have to try to influence marketers to consider placing advertisements on the basketball programme.

I have focused on the SABC because I believe we will grow through them or the free-to-air channel. The sport must be watched by the majority of the population to advance in rankings. The people in Living Standard Measure (LSM) 4-7 do not own the decoders. The programme of Slam Dunk has been broadcast mid Sundays for so long that they might as well extend the spot to 2hrs and show live basketball games. My vision is that upon the comeback, the Premier Basketball League will have a prime match every Sunday at 13h00 so that the end of the game will coincide with the preview of a soccer match. It is not that difficult to change the Sunday content on SABC 1, except that the PBL delegates will have to prepare well for the negotiations. They can also negotiate with etv whose content is also easy to change on Sundays.

It is clear that basketball faces a stiff competition on all aspects. There is a lot of work ahead which requires detail, patience, determination as well as a clear picture. Basketball is our sport and we think positively about it. This positive feeling is the first motivation in the crusade to get the PBL going.