SA's soccer fan base on the increase

"These are the people who will drive the tournament financially. If they are interested in the tournament, they'll pay any sort of price to go see a match," comments Johan Grobler of BMI, an independent sponsorship research and evaluation consultancy.

According to BMI, the 2006 World Cup in Germany has resulted in an increasing number of white South Africans taking an interest in the sport. The research also confirmed that black South African fans value local soccer more highly than the international game, while the opposite is true of whites.

A total of 3.2 million adult South Africans watched the 2006 final between Italy and France, representing just one quarter of all South African soccer spectators.

Of this, 1.8 million black viewers watched the final, representing only 15% of the country's black soccer fans. In contrast, nearly 70% of whites with an interest in soccer watched the 2006 World Cup final.
This corroborates previous research conducted by BMI that 90% of whites who watch soccer follow international soccer, but less than 60% take an interest in the local game. By comparison, the opposite is true amongst black South African fans.

Another interesting difference

The recent World Cup highlighted another interesting difference between the two sets of South African fan bases, says BMI.

The opening World Cup match between Germany and Costa Rica was more popular amongst blacks (with just under 2 million viewers) than the final, with black viewership falling nearly 7% for the final. In the case of white fans it was the exact opposite, with interest increasing as the competition progressed.

The fall in black viewership from the beginning of the competition to the end is a concern for the 2010 organisers in that the competition seems to have had less impact on the country's biggest base of soccer fans, once their favourite teams were eliminated.

Research by BMI over the past two years has, however, also shown that the traditional audience ratings (ARs) are not as reliable as once thought in determining viewership of such an event because it fails to consider the out-of-home viewership of the lower LSM groups. ARs only account for those people who watched the 2006 World Cup games in their homes and do not include those who would have watched games in pubs, restaurants, shebeens and other public areas, which can add up to 50% of total viewership.

Less significant

With the SABC broadcasting all of the matches free-to-air, out-of-home viewership was less significant in 2006 but it was still estimated at over 20%, or an additional three quarters of a million viewers.

The reporting of ARs alone also fails to take into consideration other critical issues which may impact on overall viewership. For example, while it has been widely reported that the South African ARs for the 2006 FIFA World Cup increased by 52%, this does not take into account the difference in time zones between Germany vs. Korea /Japan; which likely inhibited viewing as the games were televised at odd hours in 2002.

A further consideration is the host broadcaster, which in 2006 changed from e.tv to SABC1. Not only is SABC 1 recognised as the soccer channel in South Africa, it also has a 25% higher past seven days total audience.

Winners and losers

As South African sponsors get set to cash in on the 2010 showpiece, history has shown that in all major world events with multi-sponsors, there are winners and losers.

Amongst the SA public, Cup Coca-Cola was the clear winner, with a spontaneous association of 22.8% amongst blacks and 18.9% amongst whites. Many of the other official sponsors who had their signboards displayed around the field during the matches, though, were not as fortunate. They include sponsors such as T-Mobile, Deutche Telecom, Postbank and Budweiser, which received virtually no mentions at all amongst the SA consumers. Keep in mind that these are not well-known brands in the local market. Of the other sponsors, Hyundai and Philips performed best at 7% - 8% mentions.

In contrast, local companies which took broadcast sponsorship packages performed well, with Absa achieving the second highest awareness levels overall (13,8% blacks and 11,5% whites ). Vodacom was third and just managed to edge MTN into fourth place.

BMI's Grobler added that anything over 10 per cent association with the event was a significant return.