NIGERIAN SPORT INDUSTRY
Despite the many
challenges faced by the Nigerian sports industry in 2018, the year 2019 offers
yet another opportunity to try to become bigger and more impactful
economically.
In this piece, I attempt
to proffer some solutions to the problems and how Nigerian sport can make use
of some of the available digital tools to grow.
The growth of digital
technologies has changed the face of the traditional television model
worldwide.
Video streaming, video-on-demand (VOD) and over-the-top (OTT)
technology are allowing many content creators to bypass traditional TV and to
reach the consumers directly on their smart TVs, computers and mobile phones.
The growth of platforms like Netflix and ROK has shown that
traditional TV will become outmoded in the not too distant future. For sports,
new entrants like DAZN are changing the game entirely.
The OTT platform is buying up sports broadcast rights at a
rate that is alarming to traditional broadcasters.
It is changing the dynamics of sports content and by the
time it reaches the African market, traditional sports broadcasters will find
it hard to challenge.
The OTT model is an opportunity for Nigerian sports
properties to explore in order to distribute their content across wider
boundaries.
While it is true that many sports events in Nigeria are
hardly filmed for content due to many reasons that can range from the high cost
of production as well as the pay-to-screen model of traditional broadcasters,
digital technology can help sports property owners eliminate some of the cost
of traditional TV.
The fact is that TV has been important to the growth of
sports events and athletes over the years. Nigerian sport has struggled to make
an impact because it has ignored this model.
Traditional TV has not been able to help because owners
have preferred to use cheaper imported sports content instead of working with
local sports rights owners to produce and grow their content.
The time is ripe for Nigerian sports event owners to take
the big step of financing the production of their events and then finding
digital platforms to distribute.
There are free platforms that include Facebook, YouTube and
Twitter, among others, that can work in growing their events. With painstaking
effort, they can eventually turn around the fortunes of their sports.
The next question is how to monetise the content. Across
the world, several sports federations are using OTT and digital subscription to
shore up income.
Several international federations (Ifs) now own online TV
channels where fans can watch competitions on their PCs and mobile phones.
During the 2018 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup in Spain,
FIBA charged $5.99 (2,150 Naira) monthly per subscriber on its Live Basketball
TV to stream the games.
The growth of Nigerian sports will also be affected by
digital marketing. Organisations like Google are increasingly determining what
kind of news we receive on our mobile phones every day.
While the kind of content one receives is tailored to one’s
interest, it is important that Nigerian sports events make use of this
technology to ensure they can be seen by more people.
Every morning, Google puts the top sports news items from
the clubs and events that I follow on the app dashboard.
During the 2018 World Cup, Google ensured that all the games
were easily accessible to users.
Many Nigerian mobile phone users were inundated with news
and match fixtures, highlights and more via Google. This could be an important
avenue for growing local sports events.
From what I have observed, many Nigerian sports property
owners do not understand the content part of their events. They are satisfied
to promote events, stage it and ask journalists to cover for news. The place of
content is still usually overlooked.
2019 is an opportunity to ensure that events are milked for
their content that can be promoted via digital channels with an eye on
monetisation for good returns on investment.
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