Many papers today (20th of June, 2012) led their sport pages with the story of how Dynamos allegedly lost hundreds of thousands of United States Dollars to a local sportswear retail firm, Betta Balls. It is reported that DeMbare contracted a local sports promotion firm, S Chiware and Associates to find ways of raising revenue around the occasion of their fiftieth anniversary due next year. S Chiware then contracted Betta Balls to sell merchandise to the multitudes of DeMbare fans dotted across the country and in the diaspora. It is now alleged that despite a revenue sharing agreement between Betta Ball and S Chiware, which subsequently was supposed to also benefit Dynamos through their engagement with S Chiware, Betta Ball has pocketed the lion’s share if not all proceeds of merchandise sold so far, leaving DeMbare in their never-ending financial quandary. We are not surprised; this is simply another case of clever business people benefitting from the strong brand called Dynamos Football Club.
It becomes yet another case of a good idea gone bad. DeMbare fans who might have bought this memorabilia would feel hard done, if indeed the allegations that the club is not benefitting from the sales are true. Some may however just dismiss this case as business as usual, especially if one considers the alleged level of financial mishandling at DeMbare, and the number of similar initiatives that yielded no benefit for the Harare giants. Anyone remember the Chazunguza Team Bus initiative? How about the plethora of fake replica jerseys that sell for a song at the DeMbare games almost every Sunday. While one may want to blame the piraters and others that have milked the DeMbare brand, one will have little sympathy for the management of the club for their lack of initiative and failure to understand the value that is in the DeMbare brand.
Zimsoccerfans has had sight of the so-called jerseys in the stated retail shop. Well, even the most loyal of DeMbare fans will agree with us that the merchandise makes a mockery of the institution that Dynamos is. Our first reaction to the story was why in the world didn’t Dynamos do this deal with Nike or Adidas? Surely if one understands what DeMbare is, and how significant the 50th anniversary is, you would easily see that any sports merchandiser worth his salt will realise that this is a big deal.
Ok, maybe someone may argue to say DeMbare wanted to keep this one an indigenous affair, but maybe they should have gotten down to doing something professional with local sportswear manufacturer Faithwear. Faithwear has done a very decent job with the national cricket team, simply because there is a semblance of professionalism in how cricket affairs are managed in this country. DeMbare is perhaps Zimbabwe’s biggest brand, but without proper management, is just as good as nothing and will continue to get the disrespect it is alleged to be getting from some of these “milkers”.
Branding is a marketing term, but there is no better way to understand the power of brands than to observe football supporters passionately following their teams. What football fans may do in support of their clubs may never be fully explained. Football surpasses religion in terms of following. This makes fans the most captive and cost effective markets that businesses can use to drive demand for their products. Loyalty to one’s football team can easily transform to loyalty to a consumer product.
While reasons for supporting a club vary from family influence, past success, origin of the team among other reasons, Dynamos is easily the country’s biggest club by following and in terms of success on the field, combining a number of reasons to have such a huge following. However, successive managements at the club have dismally failed to create value out of the brand. DeMbare is the only local side to have reached the finals of the CAF Champions League and are highly rated by the continental football body. This has seen DeMbare avoiding playing in preliminary rounds of the continents’ biggest club competition, mostly because of their consistent participation in the tournament. This has however failed to be transformed into any meaningful financial benefit.
The multitudes of its followers claim to number 7 million, which if it were true would be half of the country’s unofficial total population, pegged at 14 million. This would also mean that one in every one thousand people in the world supports the Boys in Blue! Astounding isn’t it? While these figures may be unofficial, they cannot be far from the truth. Dynamos does have a lot of supporters, let alone sympathisers in Zimbabwe and its diaspora. The way simple dances like “Zora Butter” can suddenly become famous overnight by being synonymous with the football club underlines the attractive power and potential for success DeMbare has. A journalist going by the name DeMbare Dotcoms on the social media site Facebook has by far the largest Zimbabwean following. That is the aura that follows DeMbare. Perhaps the famous barroom challenge cast to many DeMbare fans by their protagonists that each of them must simply contribute a dollar to make Dynamos a million dollar club testifies how much the leadership at the club misses the point. One fact though is, all things being equal, it is not impossible for Dynamos to use the loyalty it enjoys to raise Seven Million US Dollars. It can be done, almost in an instant!!! The problem is just that there is not enough transparency in the running of the club to allow for such an investment by its most loyal supporters. Only that the founding fathers would rather have full control of a broke, financially reeling club than be diluted in a thriving institution.
How the many successive Dynamos Executives, some made up of the country’s shrewd business people have failed to derive value out of the famous club boggles the mind. Perhaps the S Chiware/Betta Ball saga gives the easiest indication of what is wrong at Dynamos. Chief among the many possible reasons why DeMbare and those aligned to it have remained poor in a billion dollar football industry is the reluctance by the founder members to let the club go and be run by professionals who can get the best value out of the club. The stranglehold that they have on the club leave only a few brave sponsors to risk putting their money into the DeMbare project. The unprofessional manner in which affairs are conducted by the founding fathers and other Powers that be at DeMbare will never see any serious sensitive marketer aligning themselves with the brand. Instead of headlining because of its brand of football and rich history, Dynamos is more famed for its infighting, leading to some local football circles labelling it the Pakistan of Zimbabwean football.
The footballing landscape of today is miles ahead of the 1963 era when Chiminya and co formed DeMbare. To see the likes of Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates from across the Limpompo achieve as much financial success as they have done, while DeMbare remains in the doldrums makes a mockery of the entrepreneurial brains we have in this country. Fine, South Africa might offer better economic opportunities across the spectrum but the gap is just too much. DeMbare does not even have an imitation of Naturena, the Kaizer Chiefs training facility admired by one of the greatest coaches in world football, Sir Alex Ferguson, whose Manchester United side even has sponsors for their training kits, DHL. Many will always point to the late 90s era when some local businessmen ran DeMbare for a few successful years, overseeing the team’s first participation in the CAF Champions League final as a glimpse of what is possible with the Mbare based outfit. Needless to say, that forward looking executive was booted by the founding fathers, chiefly because of their ideas of making DeMbare more public and allowing more investors to put their money where their joy is.
It has really been dumbfounding how Dynamos have failed to turn themselves into a rich club. DeMbare has such a national and regional appeal sponsors would have been tripping over each other to be associated with the brand. Strong football brands are created by rich traditions (generations of families supporting the same team), association with towns of origin, star players in their teams, success on the field among many other reasons. A lot of these factors make Dynamos a darling of many Zimbabwean football supporters. From its rich history of being founded in the dusty streets of the largest settlement of black workers under minority rule, becoming a symbol of resistance against an oppressive system, to success on the field and having amongst its ranks some of the country’s most decorated footballers like George Shaya and Moses Chunga, one cannot be surprised how Zimbabweans of all ages and economic class easily endear themselves with the Mbare outfit. Even politicians have been accused of taking advantage of the platform created by this team for some mileage.
Only a few weeks ago, an article appeared in one of the local papers quoting Harare Mayor Muchadei Masunda stating that his council has courted DeMbare for a possible long term lease of Rufaro Stadium. Every football loving person would get excited at the prospects of having the ceremonial home of football in the hands of the blue and white outfit. Just imagine what that would mean to its fans and players. Rufaro is the cauldron of every DeMbare fan’s dreams. Vietnam Stand is their home away from home and many of them would spend their lifetime savings to have a permanent seat on the concrete-made seats of that stadium. Who amongst their fans would not get their heart palpitating at the prospects of painting the Rufaro durawall blue and white and erecting a huge billboard emblazoned “Rufaro Stadium, home of Dynamos Football Club” along the highway to the famous market. In case you doubt the possibility of this, check the City’s Golf Clubs, and note that they are all under lease from the City Council.
But who is benefitting from this loyalty that DeMbare fans have of their team’s favourite hunting ground? It’s the City of Harare, of course. For maintaining the facility, the City has the liberty to charge DeMbare astronomically for each and every one of their home games, played at the artificial turf. Yet DeMbare could easily turn this around if they take the City of Harare up on their offer for a notarised long term lease of the facility. With such a lease in place, DeMbare would have control of the in-stadium advertising revenues and it will become easy to sell season tickets. With a few renovations, the club could erect corporate boxes and sub-let them to those willing to be associated with the brand. Most of all, the facility would give the fans of DeMbare the much needed sense of belonging to Rufaro which they have forcibly enthused themselves with. It’s ironic that on the date of writing this, DeMbare was playing and lost 1 -0 to newly promoted Harare City at Rufaro. Harare City can by virtue of them being a City of Harare owned side claim to be the rightful owners of Rufaro Stadium, yet they cannot even attract 1% of the fans DeMbare can woo to the famous venue.
There has been talk of Dynamos having its own stadium but that is really not necessary. The investment required would unnecessarily lock value into an area that the club has no interests in. The world famous Anfield used by Liverpool Football Club is under lease from the City of Liverpool, yet the Kop feels as much at home as they would, had their club owned the facility. DeMbare does not need to invest in so much to reap from its rich history and the sensation that follows its name.
One cannot even begin to fully comprehend the extent of value that management at Dynamos is failing to extract out of the institution. FutureBrand, a UK based firm famed for valuing all the football brands in the world uses three different approaches to valuing a football club’s brand, cost, income and market based valuation. The cost method simply asks how much it would cost today to build the same brand as that of DeMbare. This is astounding to even think of. To put it into perspective, ask yourself how much it would take to create a club with the same following as that of the Glamour Boys in Zimbabwe? Ask Eric Rosen, Twine Phiri or even Mimosa Mines. Don’t be surprised to get an answer like “impossible”.
From an income perspective, one would ask how much potential income the DeMbare brand could earn over a given number of years, say five years. Dynamos could potentially get income from ticket and merchandise sales, TV rights, player sales, etc. On any day, one can be guaranteed that Dynamos will play in the CAF Champions League, or at worst CAF Confederations Cup year in year out! Now think of the moneys that come with playing in the mini-league phase of the Champions League, yet barring a few mishaps like that of 2012, it is a no brainer that DeMbare easily reaches that stage of the competition. We haven’t even spoken about the multitudes that come through to watch DeMbare matches, anywhere in the country, let alone Rufaro. Nor have we considered that with their own home ground, DeMbare can save millions of US Dollars from gate taking levies.
