South Africans not united in soccer

While the interest in soccer increased by 2% overall in 2004, it declined by nearly 10% amongst whites. In addition, the findings further revealed that whites are much more interested in international soccer than local soccer, and when analysed for local soccer only, the white contribution to total interest is even less than the overall 9%.

"Therefore while it can be claimed that approximately 28% of white soccer followers support Bafana-Bafana, it must be remembered that this actually represents a very small percentage of only about 7% of the overall white adult population, and therefore only a very small percentage of the total support for Bafana-Bafana," according to Johan Grobler of BMI Sport Info.

The most recent 2004 BMI Adult Sporttrack Report further revealed that while boxing may be down, it has definitely not been counted out. Despite a noticeable decline in support of late, boxing currently ranks 5th overall by adult spectators, and is by far and away the most popular "aggressive" sport. By comparison, boxing remained considerably ahead of professional wrestling, currently ranked in 14th place overall.

Another key finding contained within this report reveals that cricket, while clearly losing support over the past year, managed to hold off a late charge by rugby, to retain its status as the second most popular spectator sport in South Africa. Rugby, despite its continued good growth, had to settle with 3rd best.

Also maintaining its strong growth trend of the past few years, and further stimulated by South Africa's great performances at the Olympics, swimming continued its glide up the rankings into 7th place in popularity overall.

BMI-Sport Info publishes the Adult SportTrack report annually.

"It is important to stay close to the sports market and to be aware of trends and changes in sports demographics with regard to participation and spectatorships - hence the need for an annual report," said Johan Grobler. South Africa's participation in international sport, and particularly major world events, continue to have a significant impact on what people want to [or as the case may be not want to] play or watch, as the relevant trends show. Different trends are continuously developing with certain sports maturing and others growing from a low base.

To satisfy the growing strategic needs of sponsors, in 2004, BMI-Sport Info, in partnership with Sponsor Value Research Services launched its latest research tool, 'The Status of Sports Codes in SA'. This product, according to David Sidenberg of Sponsor Value Services, "is a natural extension to the annual BMI SportTrack report, offering a series of detailed individual sport code reviews, aimed at further providing business people, rights holders and television channels with the necessary additional insights in order to more effectively evaluate and/or position a specific sport code".

As rights fees continue to climb, Sidenberg believes that "only those willing to take a more strategic approach to sponsorship, fully integrating brand and communication objectives with sponsorship objectives, will unlock to true potential value sponsorship investments can deliver". Offering analysis spanning areas such as property assessment, strategic fit assessment, target market penetration, rights audits and fee analysis, Sponsor Value Services was launched earlier this year to accommodate this shift in philosophy, providing clients with a step by step strategic process specifically tailored to channel sponsorship spend up front, to maximum effect and benefit in line with overall corporate objectives.

To further assist companies interested in investing in sport through sponsorships, unique segmentations are done for over 40 different sports. "It is possible to not only quantify those people that are truly passionate about a sport, but even to identify their current brand preferences in terms of choice of banks, motor cars, cell phones, beer, petrol, and many others. In addition, lifestyle characteristics such as whether they are into fashion, music, are technocrats, travelers, romantic minded, patriotic, etc, can now also be analysed. This provides for invaluable segmentation and target marketing possibilities," said Sidenberg.