The Malta Olympic Committee, supported by the Olympic Solidarity and the International Advertising Association Malta, held a seminar on the topic of Sports Marketing the past weekend.
Minister of Education Louis Galea opened the seminar wherebyhe announced that Lm9 million had so far been invested by government in the last six years in Maltese sports. He also emphasised that the seminar organised by the Malta Olympic Committee was an important step to highlight the private sector’s role in local sport.
He also highlighted government’s roles in investing in sports facilities whereby such facilities were also attractive investment opportunities for private entities.
He also pointed out that at the moment, due to lack of data, it is difficult to establish how local sport and private investments are contributing to local sport and, accordingly, the Malta Sports Council are carrying out a survey to understand how sports activities contributes to the national economy; once this is evaluated the government will be in a better position to understand how it can help sponsors of local sports.
International speakers from the International Olympic Committee, the Slovenian Olympic Committee and local speakers including the Mr Carmelo Abela MP, Shadow Minister for Sport, athletes, sports officials, private and public representatives of entities contributed their expertise on the subject. A number of issues were discussed including whether Sports was considered by local companies and the country as an investment or an expense!
Those companies who can show that they not only take from their customers, in terms of profits, but give back to the community through specific schemes or sponsorship will find that apart from having positive brand-equities, will also develop customer loyalty. Social Corporate Responsibility is all about enhancing how people feel about a firm or product.
Sport has long offered companies the opportunity to appear as ‘good corporate citizens’ playing a role in the community through the sponsorship of teams and children’s sporting programmes.
By being involved, companies are helping to make a difference, in other words who cares wins!
Representatives from the area of the media including Charles Camenzuli and Broadcasting Authority representative Joanna Spiteri help raised a number of points from the delegates on how sports tends to be given not enough importance and features low in the priorities of the media. This can be reflected in the Broadcasting Authority’s annual survey.
This is shocking when one considers that sport in the European countries is considered as a priority and given prime time coverage with numerous dedicated programmes.
On the contrary it was felt that local TV stations do not give prominence to local sports in all its entirety/diversity due to commercial policies instead of their social obligation policies. Another aspect that was highlighted was the problem of obesity in Malta and how the authorities, local companies and the media are not helping to spread the message of the importance of having an active lifestyle especially targeting parents and young children.
Guest speaker from the Malta Tourism Authority Ms. Tania Sultana helped to make local sports associations aware of the possibilities available in promoting and investing in sports tourism: however, it was pointed out that facilities and the human resources available were not necessary up to scratch especially when one considers that the majority of the 47 sporting associations, at least 90%, operate on a voluntary basis and do not have any employees due to lack of or no-funding.
Mr Carmelo Abela MP agreed during the seminar that the Maltese government budgetary allocation for sports leaves much to be desired especially when this allocation is compared with other countries, which are more or less the same size of our country. One of the reasons for this was that Malta’s sporting culture is not sufficient enough to influence policy makers to dedicate more funds and other resources to sports.
In his presentation on how could government possibly help Sports in Malta through alternative sources of income, mainly from private entities and companies, a number of suggestions were forthcoming including the possibilities of tax benefits and fiscal incentives as other ways that may help attract more private commercial entities to dedicate an amount of money from their profits for sports.
After all why should a commercial company dedicate and invest money in sport? Another suggestion was the possibiliy of a Sport Lottery based on the UK model whereby a percentage of funds could have been allocated to help sports: however due to privatisation this has considered at another time, though hopefully this idea will not be ruled out.
It was concluded that the boundaries of sports marketing are endless; it offers a myriad of opportunities to utilise the public interest to market products, combined with cause-related proactive strategies with genuine and well directed community support.
Such involvement will, in return, help create a more physically active population which, in the long run, means less strain on the health care and criminal justice systems, as well as on social services. If local companies realise the ‘social responsibility and corporate citizenship’ benefits of being involved in sports they will be helping the general community and by doing so they will also be contributing and championing a good cause: helping the sports sector to strengthen their profile and creating a healthy society that has a strong sporting culture.