Anyone who sponsors sport wants a return on their investment. This can be measured in TV time, media coverage, increased sales, brand awareness etc.
There is no scientific formula that spews out exact benefits, financial or otherwise. South African sponsors go for the big sports - soccer, cricket and rugby. Tennis, golf and boxing play second or third fiddle and the rest are left at the starting line with little or no money to play with.
The argument is that the big sports get the most coverage and that's where companies want to be. However some companies don't do assessments of their target markets and end up staying in the big money game simply so that they don't lose face.
There are options when choosing sponsorship deals and I plan to deal with a couple of them in this article.
Hockey is a prime example of a sport where national players pay out of their own pockets to represent South Africa. Now hockey, although similar in many respects, does not get anywhere near the coverage that soccer does.
Immediately the reader will be questioning my sanity but the point to consider is how much is hockey sponsorship going to cost compared to soccer.
The exact figures I do not have but the amounts of money that gain a company access to a hockey jersey have to be miniscule compared to those demanded by the soccer clubs.
This is all a direct result of the free market and I am not advocating some sort of quota style scenario for sponsorship deals. What I am suggesting is that marketing departments should do more research on cost and their specific target market before throwing away mega piles of rands.
Two totally off-the-wall examples of what I am talking about are chess and pool. Pool is a bar activity I hear someone say. No, it's an international sport and South Africa at one stage in the mid 90's were up in the top three in the world.
Chess teams from all over the world compete every two years in an Olympiad. Watu Kobese, the best player that we have currently, was forced last year to go and coach Botswana because there was no decent sponsorship forthcoming for the SA team.
The last point I want to make is that the sums involved in sponsoring some marginalised sport are minor compared to getting a seat at the main sports table but for that you could have a small sport almost all to yourself.
The options are there to research and assess what impact these sponsorship decisions are going to have on your company. Not just financially but the total return on investment.
Remember that being a big fish in a small pond can get you noticed. If it fits your target market and saves some cash for another venture than you'd be crazy not to consider it.
You do not have to spend millions to be noticed if you plan and implement your publicity and marketing with a bit of foresight.
