A look into the future of professional football: the PSL business perspective

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By Mahlomola Martin Lefupana



The future of professional football at a Premier Soccer League (PSL) level looks bright, full of innovation and dynamism in approach. South African football has in the recent past enjoyed serious growth in revenue from broadcast right and sponsorship and has been rated in the top 20 money league by Deloitte in the past 10 years. The broadcast and sponsorship revenue has been particularly crucial to the league financial stability, helping grow direct and indirect business associated with football. 

It is believed that professional football in South Africa has had direct, indirect and induced contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimated to be almost 2 %. This come through direct and indirect businesses and employment in the sectors such as financial serves, tourism, events management, media, marketing, merchandising distribution and infrastructure development. Since the signing of a mega broadcast deal with Supersport International over a decade ago, the PSL is now in a financial stable position than it was before, have invested in marketing of the products, improved corporate social investment and general professionalization of the game. The recent launch of Multi Choice Diski Shield act as another empowerment to the development of youth football in South Africa. The success of Multi Choice Diski league cannot be understated, its approach from footballing perspective have that of inclusive and giving empowerment to young players and some  players have went on to represent the national teams from under 17 to senior teams.
South Africa football is highly rate for its professionalism across the continent and the world, mainly because of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, but also because of the financial and marketing position of the league. The league is making significant progress in other parts of the word, we have seen players coming from South America, New Zealand Europe and Northern part of Africa to play in the PSL. There are advantages with having players from all these regions such as popularity in different markets, exposure to international business and increasing market share. There has also been visibly improvement in the professionalism of team and players in the public relation and media relations, with most team attracting sponsors, while players are also getting different sources of endorsements. 

The sore point that continues to haunt the professional football is the poor attendance of football matches with numbers dwindling, especially in league matches, except where big games like Chief vs Pirates, Sundowns vs Chiefs, Sundowns vs Cape Town City, Cape Town City vs Ajax/Pirates/Chiefs and recently home matches at Black Leopards and Maritzburg United. There is a need for PSL leadership to delve into the reasons why people don’t attend matches as much as they should, in this case a long-term strategy is needed. In the era of digital technology, the use of social media and other sources of entertainment serves to increase competition for watching football matches, thus a loyalty programmes to the fans will be important for making fans keep attending matches.  

The PSL brand is based on continued innovation, which is engineered by the league marketing team and have added several innovations over the years such as Last-fan standing, Q-Innovation and Multi-Shield Competition etc. The PSL communication has leveraged on digital technology and are increasing the use of social media and creating digital community through Twitter and Facebook. 

The digitisation of the world also requires that the PSL come with inward and outward digital strategy that will enhance the league and not to be affected by the wave of digital disruption that is affecting most industry, including the threat of live streaming of matches, social media, live updates etc. Football fans are continuously demanding instance reporting and engagement on issues, live scores, convenient stadium access to WI-Fi and safety at stadiums. All these demand requires a strategy that meet the needs of the fans. 

The solution to continued sustainability should include to have digital strategy, focus on technology, reputation management, fan engagement, empowering the future leaders of the game from administrative and executive roles. The future of professional football looks bright and should customise digital strategy to avoid disruption.
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

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