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| Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs fans during Soweto derby at a packed soccer city stadium http://www.iol/ .co.za |
Public Relations is a very broad profession that can work in any sector even in sports. Public relation practitioner is responsible for the brand image, and communicating with the target audience of the organisation on their behalf. It is still the same in football or any other type of sports Public relations practitioner's role in sport is to coordinate the flow of information from the teams to the press and feed the public hungry for sport news, team data, visibility and filling the stadium with fans. They also play an important role in the promotion, increasing the public interest.
A public relations practitioner do everything from writing newspapers stories and the press release to organising press briefing, preparing press guides and maintaining teams and its players so as to throw the most positive light on a situation. They can do little to wave away the critics from the media but they must work very hard to sooth players painful reaction to the public critics. Unique PRP realised that it is better to inspire that degrade just like as Confucius said " he who throws mud losses ground". They must conduct community projects whereby the team will interact with the public, people feel good when they are noticed.
Recently it has no been the case in South African football, teams have not been marketing themselves in a good way. This is the reason why we have been witnessing empty stadiums during local football games. Back in the days the public relation practitioner of teams where interacting with the community with the respective teams supporters this is the reason why stadiums were filled to full capacity during games, recently the only game given a huge marketing platform is the Soweto derby it is the only game that attract a lot of crowed why is it not the same for other teams what is the public relation department of those teams doing.
In the European leagues we see supporters filling the stadiums to full capacity why is it not the case for South African football. The 2010 World Cup generated a lot of interest in South African football and Africa as a whole high quality stadiums were build for this prestigious tournament. It was well marketed through out the world as a whole the stadiums where filled, it is seen as one of the best world cup ever. The question is that did it leave a legacy behind? if so why are we not following it why build fancy stadiums they we do not go to them to support our teams?
I believe that 2010 world Cup has leave a legacy of faith to South African Fans, because now we have a positive attitude towards soccer, even though we still lack in some areas but we are getting there. And the fancy stadiums will help for events in the future.
ReplyDeleteWe can also blame PSL in terms of how is schedules the games you cannot expect stadiums to be full on Monday or Tuesday people have families and work to attend too and things keep on increasing such as food transport,petrol etc meaning that at the end of the day you must choose is it entertainment or feeding your family and doing savings.
ReplyDelete@ tivani yes it has left a legacy of beautiful stadiums and all that but does it has to be big games or teams with big name players so that the fans can fill the stadiums this teams lack marketing skills
ReplyDelete@ lucky phillemon well thats another point to consider but we must not forget this team also have have domestic cups to play and the champions league if we only play the games on weekend then it means the league will have to run long. At countries like London their teams are well marketed thats why their fans can fill stadiums in every games they play during the week or weekends, well in our case it can also be the ticket price and we are not a developed country like those other countries
ReplyDeleteyes it does exist but we can`t compare it with that of the early 90s as you can`t compare today`s football with that of the early 90s,forinstance when Patco Mafani was a PRP for Kaizer chiefs you`d notice that chiefs was always having a good image
ReplyDelete@ zubenathi thats the problem mate at the moment we have the most beautiful stadiums which we can not fiil up beacuse teasm are not marketing their team in a proper way they are not giving us fans a reason to go and fill the beautiful arenas
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