27 September 2018, by: Thabang Kgeledi

CAN CUP FINALS BE EXCITING WITHOUT THE BIG THREE?

The MTN 8 final is this Saturday night! I’m excited but, is everyone else?

Fixture: Catch vs on Saturday, 29 September 2018 at the LIVE on on SS4 at 19H00 ??

— SuperSport United FC (@SuperSportFC)

I asked my friends if they were pumped up for this weekend’s game – they didn’t seem to be as exhilarated as I was. So I also asked my girlfriend, out of 100, how amped up she was – she said -0.4

Am I, and the 28 supporters Supersport United and Cape Town City have between them, the only people thrilled about the MTN 8 final?

Unfortunately, this seems to be the case. I am a soccer super fan, right up there with the guy who tattooed his team’s logo on his face, and they, my friends and my girlfriend are casual soccer fans.

Casual soccer fans – a subsection of them are called bandwagoners* – are supporters who watch soccer only when; their team is playing, it’s a World Cup Final or Champions League Final, the team they recently started supporting (See definition of bandwagon fan below) is playing, they are convinced by their boyfriend to do so when they tell them “after this game we’ll watch Keeping Up With Kardashians together, I promise”

*Bandwagon fan, a person who likes a sports team just because of their recent success.

Here is where the problem lies.

Orlando Pirates, Kaizer Chiefs, and Mamelodi Sundowns have an 85% market share of supporters in South African football. About 74% of those are casual supporters.

Casual fans are important to the game. They are the people who fill up the stadiums, they buy ridiculously priced jersey’s (that are changed every year) on credit, they argue for their team without facts, and they call into radio stations to make points that don’t make any logical sense.

Having ‘smaller teams’ in the final of your competition is actually bad for business. Not enough casual fans are excited so not many tickets will be sold. They aren’t thousands and thousands of true deep fans of Supersport and Cape Town City going to the stadium.

It’s a sad reality that companies like MTN, Telkom, and Nedbank have to deal with. Most people aren’t interested in cup finals if Orlando Pirates, Kaizer Chiefs, and Mamelodi Sundowns aren’t involved. The Soweto derby gets more media coverage than the MTN 8 final.

I’m not too sure if there is anything the corporates sponsoring the cup competitions can do because it actually isn’t their problem. The onus should be on the teams. This issue can only be fixed by teams growing their fan base and the kids are the future.

I am an Orlando Pirates supporter, I didn’t choose to be one I was just told I was one when I was 3 by my Dad. I have been one ever since and I won’t change my mind even if they do stink on occasion.

Kids of nowadays, Generation Z as the marketing guru’s call them, are known to be independent thinkers. They aren’t told which team to support by their parents they have Netflix, Youtube, and RocoMamas – they have an abundance of choices. They will choose who and what they are fans of they just need alternatives.

I sometimes go through Instagram accounts of the ‘smaller teams’ and they look bland and uninspired. A fair few of them are entertaining on Twitter. These teams need to put the same energy in content on all the social networks (YouTube, Pinterest, etc.) as this is what the younger people consume.

Generating enthusiasm for a team doesn’t happen automatically. Teams like Cape Town City are on the right path but others are dragging their feet. Through merchandising, branding and aggressive social media campaigns, smaller teams can get a piece of the big three pie. Till then we will have to continue seeing half full stadia in cup finals and using the Jenners/Kardashians as our bargaining chip.

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