Sports consultancy good for Africa


Lazarus Sauti

Harare -Sports consultancy is the business of helping sports teams to function and run as businesses and issues in this field take in site management, human resources and acquisitions among other things.

This means sport is now a business and a platform to create employment.

Accordingly, sports teams in countries within and across Africa should have comprehensive plans that focus not only on team development, but public relations – to establish and maintain their images.

More so, Africa needs sports consulting firms that should specialise specifically in dealing with business law as it relates to sports. The consultants in these cases should be lawyers who advise clients on legal issues.

Since infrastructure is of paramount importance to sports development, some sports consulting firms should specialise in the design and location of new facilities, such as stadiums and sporting arenas.

More importantly, sports consulting firms should also deal with the athletes themselves. Athletes are valuable assets and they should be managed properly.

Teams should therefore contract sports psychology services as sports consulting firms so that they can advise athletes on future plans; and help them understand that they are also a part of the business.

The overall goal should be to increase performance, not only of the team itself, but of the business operation in general.

Africa’s sports industry has great potential, which has remained dormant because the full value has not been unlocked.

Meanwhile, to unlock this potential, sports federations should host sports marketing conferences where sports associations and marketers will exchange notes.

The conferences should be about to give information and networking between business and sports sectors.

“Sport summits are good because they show that the sport industry needs to maintain a healthy brand and rights market for long-term sustainability.

“Sport sponsorship is still providing value for money and makes good business sense, but, the sector cannot ignore the effects that the convergence of technology, telecommunications and media has had on the sports content industry and the fans that interact with it,” says Judy Prins, head of sports media and entertainment at Deloitte.

Sports associations and businesses need to define where they stand and where they want to go. Thus, they should devise ways of reaching their targets and sports consultancy firms should be ideal partners for this to be successful.

Prins said, “This can be done in taking a structured approach to sport against the backdrop of continual change and challenges that it faces.

“Sport is big business anyway you look at it and there is currently no form that offers advisory services in this area.”

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