EDITORIAL | Own goal or genius marketing? Either way R1bn idea is a slap in the face for SA teams

A proposal to spend R1bn on a sponsorship deal with English Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur in exchange for advertising and branding rights in a bid to entice tourists to our shores — that would be akin to scoring an own goal.

The country is in the middle of an electricity crisis, morphing into a water and sanitation disaster, disrupting food cold chains, fuelling growing public indignation and spewing sewage into the ocean at our beaches. The list goes on.

Surely that R1bn could be put to better use fixing some of these pressing problems at home first, was the acerbic response from a fed-up citizenry. Tourists need electricity, water, sanitation and to enjoy our beaches. The state of our nation is enough to scare off all but the most adventurous traveller, they surmised.

The SA government, through its marketing agency SA Tourism, was preparing to ink the R1bn sponsorship deal, reported the Daily Maverick, anticipating a R6bn return via tourism.

Granted, our tourism industry was pulverised by the travel restrictions and onerous regulations imposed globally during the Covid-19 pandemic. Local businesses were destroyed, jobs were lost.

Is it worth the gamble when we are down to our last chips on the table, given the country’s financial constraints and subject to the approval of National Treasury?

Tourism contributes significantly towards job creation and the country’s GDP (nearly $13.2bn/R227bn in 2021). SA faces significant economic headwinds in 2023 and tourism could be a welcome source of revenue as we sail through the storm.

While SA could ill afford spending R1bn on a sleeve punt (as done by Rwanda in a similar sponsorship deal with Arsenal), rather than a slap in the face, the proposal could be viewed as precisely the type of out-of-the-box thinking required to breathe new life into the industry.

Spurs, it turns out, could prove to be a corridor leading to a strategic tourism market for SA. The club has long coveted the Asian market (China, Singapore, Korea) and with footballer Heung-Min Son being such a major drawcard for Spurs it could help entice that potentially lucrative market to SA.

But is it worth the gamble when we are down to our last chips on the table, given the country’s financial constraints and subject to the approval of National Treasury?

Either way, revelations about the proposal are undoubtedly a smack in the face for our local teams which have encountered numerous funding hurdles.

Recently we were crowdfunding to pay Olympic bonuses, our hockey team was raising money to go to the Olympics.

Why couldn’t the money have gone to supporting the Proteas who are playing international tournaments that are watched globally?

Or sponsor the Women’s T20 World Cup happening here with 10 nations?