 Welcome back to the touchline on Y25 Maxel Vaseke It's my name just like we promised you last Saturday We were having a conversation that was never ended successfully and that's why Ngara Kamuna is back on the show to continue dissecting about sports and finance how sports can spur economy and so on but Godly is also here with us Ngara, within the week have you been? I've been okay Oh, that question found me off guard but yes, I've been okay Thank you very much for inviting me It's always a pleasure to cover talk sports Like I said last week I think Saturday is only about one thing or the weekend Yeah, the weekend is only about sports Not having anything else Yeah So I don't know whether you followed something was happening in town The summit being organized and presided over by mobile service provider SafariKom It was dubbed Tissini and I saw a lot of people in attendance My only question and worry has been also See these people who attend How active are they involved in making the game better? Well, that's a tricky one because I didn't know the attendees of that event but most of the time I usually say journalists going for those events I see also sports stakeholders but I usually don't see the main sports stakeholders coming onto those events but the key question is how impactful is that event to the sports industry? That question can be well responded to by Ngaro How impactful? Have you been in position to attend one of those congresses, workshops some more trainings that are being organized by the corporates? Corporates might have good will but now execution Some we don't get invites I don't know But my feeling is there are very few people who understand financing in sports in this country We all look at it from corporate sponsorship We all look at it from corporate sponsorship and that is just one arm of financing of sports Now I've come up with a list here actually it's Osoro who gave me this piece of paper it's something I actually wanted to mention Currently today in the top 100 list of billionaires of the world's wealthiest people in the world and they range up I think the least the poorest on that list for Lakova Beroaid is about what about 18.5 billion dollars We have Steve Burma who owns the Los Angeles Clippers We have Dan Gilbert who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers They somebody have just thrown in there just for purposes of just to show the impact to sports There's Phil Knight The founder of Nike There is Sheik Al Mansur of course Of Manchester City and there's Alicia Uzmanov who's a minority shareholder of Arsenal He had been a big time shareholder That's top five? No no I'm saying the top 100 the wealthiest Now there's some other risk takers who would like to mention they might not be within they might not be above 18.5 billion dollars but they range somewhere between 2 billion dollars and 18 billion dollars Of course they stand cranky who's the majority shareholder of Arsenal You have Roman Abramovich at Chelsea You have the Glazer family Man United and Tampa Bay Bakanias where Tom Brady is now playing You have to me I think one of the most visionary owners and that's Dr. Jerry Bass the owner he died but his family is the main owner of the Los Angeles Clippers You have Jerry Reinsdorf who's still making money of Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordanera You have and this is another person guys are called risk takers There's a gentleman called Paul Allen guys don't know about him but Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates and he was a long time owner of the Portland Trail Blazers from the money he made by the way to mention of that list I've talked about the top 100 guys the top 100 wealthiest people in the world the first sports team owner is at number 8 and that's Steve Burma Steve Burma is a long time CEO of Microsoft long time CEO of Microsoft not even at the owner he was the CEO of Microsoft I think he retired in 2014 and he made a hell lot of money and because I don't know if you guys remember there was a time Los Angeles Clippers former owner Donald Sterling was accused of racism remarks and the NBA insisted that he had to be removed and that's when they got Steve Burma in if you come back to Africa just to show that it also happens in Africa we talked about it last week we talked about Patrick Mutsepa and by the way forget about even the Mamelodi sandowns he's also a 37% owner of the Blue Bulls which is a rugby team franchise based in they play at the Lofters first first of all Pretoria they basically from Pretoria he's a 37% owner of that team you have Muameduji we talked about last week Simba yes you have this name it's French M-O-I-S-E Moise Moa Katoombi anyway he's the owner of Tipi Muzembe former governor of course of the area where Tipi Muzembe come from and he's a businessman but he's very shocking he's about 55 years old but the one common factor about all these people I've mentioned is they made their money elsewhere and they never they looked at sports as from a business perspective none of these guys are former players none they are from company I like business I like to keep and look it for you yes none of them are former players none of them are coaches in fact I think in ownership worldwide the only player who's an owner now is Michael Jordan can you imagine okay you have some small guys like Grant Hill who they have stake in Atlanta Hawks but Lebron Lebron in Liverpool you know but like majority owner it's only Michael Jordan all these guys are businessmen who saw the business aspect of sports they saw Dr. Bass is I've told you Dr. Bass for me is perhaps the best example in 1979 he bought the LA Lakers for $67 million he was a chemical engineer he had made his money and he bought the LA Lakers for $67 million and he implemented four plans that were going to take Lakers to the next level for him Los Angeles is Hollywood and therefore they needed a team to identify with Hollywood so four things he did number one he had just drafted or they had just drafted Majid Johnson was I think the first like mega superstar of the NBA they had just he signed he brought over Pat Riley the coach and because he said the basketball style had to reflect the first place life of Los Angeles so hence the name the Showtime Lakers exactly Showtime Lakers he replaced the half time organist with the Chia girls that are now Chia leaders that are now famous in sports and of course he also he created the hottest night club in Los Angeles being in the Lakers being at the forum the club was called the arenas called the forum yes so he got he got the hottest night club and then because it's can we do that in Kenya? it's possible it's possible I mean then but what will be the perception then look it's business at the end of the day you see sports stars are celebrities and I was telling somebody this morning that okay fine Lebron James or all these guys Leo Messi hands I don't know a million pounds a week or whatever amounts he hands we're not looking to earn a million pounds a week but you can get to a point where they're earning a million shillings a week which is good enough that person is taking home four million shillings in a month of course the taxes are going to be ridiculous but for sports person taking home three million shillings a week for me the biggest thing is you plug there's a very big hole between us in Europe and there's nothing filling that hole the gap is the gap is too wide you're either amateur or you make it pro in Europe but there's no that pro setting here and that's what we need to cover for to cover for that pro setting is very simple it's just that the wealthy guys and these guys are there in Kenya the wealthy guys in Kenya just need to be told look sports is a business no longer look at it as a pastime you know in America they say like and even in England but it's big yeah like sports ownership is like knighthood it's like a yeah it's like a what are they called get it close community close community it's like they are cardemom exactly you just don't get in there yeah it's like this privileged sports you know you just don't get in there and sit down no you know for you to be a sports owner you have to be somebody who has but now which information that is needed to be pumped into the minds of billionaires in Kenya so that they can initiate sports programs because there there is skepticism that you know come on what we've seen from sports management it's not it's not the big deal you see look that two different two different things here there's a kind situation of sports management which is basically society is it's equivalent of Parastatos you're getting money every year it's not your money there's no one you're accounting to yes what it's a delegate you're accounting to really at even the delegates CPSIA or METOR yes so it's not there's no there's no real corporate governance yeah but in this particular aspect that I'm telling you this is there's no difference between these companies and and in a bank it's the same corporate governance structure it's corporate governance structure it's shareholder equity it's you have to explain to the shareholder where at the end of the day in the AGM the shareholder wants to know how was the money spent yeah how was the money spent towards the realization you started with this for a very long time and it's still happening up to today our sports federations our sports managers in this country all they do is benchmark yes all they do is go to bundesliga go to la liga go to epl go all over america look at our nba's workings just benchmarking and looking at facilities and structures not getting to the science behind of how this thing works to the mechanics at the mechanics of how these sports franchises work and how they make money and how they can help the economy and all that now because of that corporate social responsibility that companies have been giving these sports entities not realings that that's the budget of a company for them at the end of the day I'm visible to the audience out there and at the end of the year standard bank standard charter bank will tell its delegates we spent 60 million on corporate social responsibility and our sports managers remained in that age that for us at the end of the day kukakola will give us this amount of 1-2 million shillings and that is not what we are going to use I remember they let bob kolimo actually said it these sports people these sports managers and all that don't want to be accountable even to us don't want to come to us and say hey we gave you 2 million this is how we have spent it so that even bob kolimo when it goes to the shareholder as he tells them I gave 2 million to football Kenya Federation this is how they they use it so that transparency and accountability mechanism has killed the sport at the end of the day because I remember some time back a few years ago in 2010 2011 when safari kum initiated sakata bowl tournament and they pumped a lot of resources into the federation then led by former Supremo Samu Nyamue and you know it was alleged that one of the top officials of FKF then demanded for kickback you see and then safari kum with the way they do things transparent land profession they said come on we withdrawing from this deal and that's how the tournament was killed you see okay granted and let's let's not lie about it the managers of sport in this country ridiculous yes for me to look for a better world they you know somebody told me when we were thinking about all these things that we will be discussing about in terms of commercializing and privatizing sports yes I was speaking to some government official and he told me the problem with Kenyan people is you are focused on governance you never think on business yes you are always focusing on governance how can I get to the top it's only governance so in the rule the law says this the constitution says this delegate says it so governance will always result in politics but you never look at it from a business perspective business is all about this it's all about money you want our players to pay it when we were talking our Kenya television network have these e-sports it's a program so I was curious e-sports, e-sports why are these people bringing e-sports so I went to do my research and discovered e-sports is now $400 billion industry and these are just kids sitting and playing PlayStation playing PS5 universities in the US, in the UK, in Hong Kong now creating labs to structure this into business and it's bringing money our sports people need to realize that we are done away with recreation in sports as a world, as a country and everywhere we are our sports managers need to come to that realization that it is never recreation it's never pastime it is now business and you see the ecosystem that is building you're talking about e-sports now $400 billion economy and e-sport is a ripple effect of these things these people we talked about these high net worth individuals sinking in their money to run the operational costs of a business it just so happened that this business was a sporting organization now forget even about the sporting teams themselves guys, let's even think about stadia yes in Kenya we keep on screaming about this thing about government building stadia Osoro, one of the last times I think not this time the time, the one before and were here we talked about how in England the government doesn't even own any of the stadias Wembley stadias you know it's a I think the only stadium they own is Wembley they don't even own Wembley guys Wembley is owned by the FA FA Yes Futbol asociation Twickenham is owned by the RFU the rugby football union sorry where western play the Olympic stadium or the Olympic stadium might be the only because of the Olympics but even then I think they have a long time I think western have a long time deal with regard to that particular place but you think about the commonwealth games in England in 2002 of course commonwealth is something that's going to be funded by the British government yes but do you know what do you know which stadium hosted the commonwealth in 2002 it's a kind etihad stadium so the deal was immediately after the commonwealth games were concluded in 2002 the stadium was going to be bought by Manchester City yes and then city in fact it is called the city of Manchester yes and then of course now when etihad when the big money came in when Almansoor came in etihad now bought the naming rights for the stadium so even when it comes to stadia it's an issue of private investment and there are so many ways to make money of it we've just talked about etihad for example the naming rights deal how much I was looking at the emirates do you know majority of emirates budget the construct I think it cost about 378 million pounds yes to construct the the emirates now Arsenal's home stadium yeah do you know the bulk of that amount was met by the naming rights deal with emirates emirates yeah the bulk of that money was met by the name they now have they now have a naming rights deal until 2028 yes but what does that mean now emirates is a global brand they want to maintain that global picture yes so of course they're not going to let the emirates stadium be ran down whatever modernization needs to happen to emirates is going to happen it's kind of like on a small scale of course but it's kind of like what happened it's safari kum in kasarani yes you know when when safari kum had a naming rights deal in kasarani but I'm not now looking I'm not looking from a development I'm looking now from I'm not looking from a managing perspective I'm now looking from a construction perspective for example it is something I really want and kudos I must when you talk with some of the leadership and then let me speak where I know when you speak to for example joffrey gangler he's very open to that if he's able to get you know a private investor to come into RFEA and they sit down and they develop a 15,000 modern stadium where you get into an agreement to where this person you know there are various commercial rights that's where you can split the revenues there is advertising revenue we've talked about a naming rights revenue we've talked about there's something that guys don't know called corporate boxes yes and you know when I had this discussion and we were brainstorming about this stuff and I sat down and I went to anfield because I know I have a I have a relative who worked who was a waiter in the corporate boxes yes in in live up yeah at anfield so I was asking him how it works yeah so out of curiosity I went now to look at anfield and how it works guys forget about the corporate boxes like I was telling you last week there's a bar called like the Kalzberg dugout you know Liverpool is associated with Kalzberg so it's called the Kalzberg that's one bar then there's a restaurant you call the legends what that's where now only Liverpool legends go then there's a an affin dining restaurant there you know so all these are revenue generators for the stadium and for the people who have brought in their money to construct that stadium you see when we are talking of the corporate boxes as we go on remember the superboard yes this time it was happening in Miami and one thing they had for the corporate hunchers was picking them all the way from your home so if you have paid for your ticket for your box and the superboard is happening in Miami and you are going to be in the corporate box the car comes for you at your house your VIP guest for us it comes to you in your at your house for you get into your car they drive you all the way to the stadium and take you to the lounge as you wait for the game and take you to the to the box to the box because the amount of money you have paid to sit in that box deserves the hospitality and that they are going to and you know and you know what I am going to tell you Osoro you'll be shocked you'll be shocked that for that day only now a superboard ticket ranges yes you can get you can get the top top tier tickets maybe thousand two thousand dollars but then now the proper tickets go like about 70,000 dollars that's 7 million shillings so the corporate boxes now will be playing about to 50 300,000 dollars that's 30 million one box icing the revenue but you see like you're saying Osoro icing the experience you're being given for that 300,000 dollars because I was looking at the Tottenham new stadium and you look at the amount of money they have been making for the club you look at the there has been television and media which is usually true operations sponsorship and all that and you realize that the gate collections are going down the gate collections are going down but the stadium visibility the stadium advertisement alone is now going to surpass the gate collection because during the game now everybody is watching it on tv yes but Adidas wants the advertisement and something like that was about to happen a few years ago when Coca-Cola came on board in part 2011 the SSMB for renaming of Nyaya National Stadium and I think he looked lucrative but it was turned down it was I mean even left that 2011 they were also doing a deal also for Ellis Park in South Africa so it was called the Coca-Cola by the way it was Coca-Cola Park for like five six years then the Coca-Cola left now Emirates have checked in with a bigger deal yes you know so this case are making easy money I mean to your point whatever you're saying then do you know it was expected that teams were going to lose revenue yes because of COVID-19 the ingenuity that these these guys have immediately pop like you're saying advertising brand so Adidas said they want more visibility so you take off where the guys would have been sitting they put a big Adidas banner so you've been seeing them during the games they put a big Adidas banner revenues have shot up for teams from the commercial partnerships of course the only reason that ties in is because of TV money yes and the visibility like you say but if we go back to where we have started this conversation all those things we are seeing are repole effect of this of the big we have to get yes behind net worth individuals they have to start looking at this from a business perspective they have to start seeing the viability of this when you look at some of the numbers I'll speak again rugby if you look either it's Kenny rugby union or Kenny Hallacoins if you look at some of the numbers these guys they are games they are match day they are making profit I think to help you to that point is yes a little bit of course let's take a short commercial break one minutes we will be back the sake of you know the advertisers