In recent weeks, there has been a couple of sponsorship deals announced by the NPFL and NWFL. The NPFL announced Bitnob as its elite sponsor while the NWFL announced TULCAN Energy as the lead sponsor for their Super Six tournament.
However, market expert Yinka Adebayo has explained that the leagues including the NNL and NLO can get bigger sponsors if the right things are done.
Yinka Adebayo who is the Executive Director, Media investment at OMG WeCa Media Reach, OMD Nigeria said “there is a whole lot of cleaning up that we need to do. When we say a whole lot, let’s put in numbers.”
“The game we play in marketing is a game of numbers because what you cannot count, you cannot manage. The moment you can count it, it becomes very easy to manage our numbers to it.
A whole lot in terms of talent, a whole lot in terms of spectators, a whole lot in terms of what? Let’s put it in context so that people can understand and relate.
Most brands are looking for Return On Investment(ROI), if I book this money here what I’m I getting in return, and what is deliverables going to be like.
Deliverables must be so enhanced to take care of the hygiene factors, am I sure in associating with you won’t impact my image.” He added.
The Executive Director, who has over 20-year of experience in the field of Marketing Communications with a key focus on advertising & media, went further to add that some violent incidents recorded during some matches in the NNL and NLO are of great disadvantage to the image of the leagues.
He noted that no brand would be willing to associate with a league whose security of lives and property of fans coming into the stadium to watch league matches is not assured.
“The league you sponsor, somebody got killed or got brutalized in there, is that good for the brand? So all of these are things that matter.
Look at the EPL, people go into most of the stadia with their families. Can you do that in Nigeria? Even if you the head of the family are not sure of your own safety, will you now bring your wife or kids in there?. Those are the kind of things we should begin to look at.”
On how to correct the lack of sponsors for the leagues, the marketing expert stated that the journey to improve the lower tier divisions has already begun but there are still a lot of cleaning that still needs to be done.
“We still have a whole lot to do in terms of cleaning up though the journey has started I think a whole lot more still needs to be done and you see the respect you ask for is usually the one you don’t deserve. If you truly deserve it, even your enemy gives it to you.
The lower divisions need to be well-positioned, structured, packaged, and all proper efforts put into the right places.
These are things that will place them into the limelight and from there, they can easily attract brands.
So in football, we say we are giving a whole lot but people are not seeing it, no one is seeing the lots you are giving.
If the lot is there, you won’t be the one chasing brands, brands will come after you because they can see clearly, they can experience clearly. It is not a brainer once the value is on the table, even the blind will see and they will hear about it so we just need to put value first and once that value is thereby ensuring we do the necessary cleaning up, we put some structures in place, we put some level of sanity into what we do, clear up the hygiene factor, the league is well positioned then naturally the brands will come.” He concluded.
