The promise of football as a business
Published:Friday | October 11, 2024 | 12:11 AMLuke Douglas - Senior Business Reporter
After years of promise, professional football seems to be taking off as a business opportunity in Jamaica, with a number of corporate players positioning themselves to score by pumping expertise and money into the sport.
Party and event organiser Dream Entertainment Limited is one of the most recent to enter the playfield after inking a deal with Arnett Gardens Football Club, the team with, perhaps, the largest fan base in top football competition Jamaica Premier League.
The agreement will seek to bring financial stability and a more sustainable future for the club, said club chairman Mark Golding, who is also member of Parliament for the area.
“I was seeking a commercial partner to guide strategy and manage the club forward to new revenue and achieve financial sustainability,” Golding said last month when the partnership was first disclosed.
The changes at Arnett Gardens are not surprising to Christopher Williams, chairman of Professional Football Jamaica Limited, PFJL, the body responsible for organising and managing the Premier League.
“Having been involved for four years in professional football, I can say there is a valuable business opportunity in the Jamaica Premier League,” said Williams, who is co-founder of Proven Group, an investment management company with holdings in parts of the Caribbean.
The Arnett Gardens move follows similar recent developments at two other clubs, at least, in the 14-team Premier League: former champions Portmore United included in its ownership Garwin Tulloch from construction company Kemtech and United Sports Group, a consortium comprising well-known businesspersons; and businessman Yoni Epstein took over as president of Montego Bay United late last year.
There is also talk of other deals involving private-sector interests on the horizon.
The Premier League employs about 700 persons directly, inclusive of players, coaches, and administrators, and facilitates another 1,000 indirect jobs, and around about $600 million is deployed into the league annually, Williams said in an interview with the Financial Gleaner.
Avenues for monetisation
He added that corporate Jamaica is now seizing the commercial opportunity that football presents, citing five avenues for monetisation in the league.
“First of all, there is the gate (admission to watch games). We have about five gates open around the country for nine months of the year. That is like a nightclub that opens every weekend, with persons entering by paying an attendance fee,” Williams said.
“Second, there is the sale of broadcast rights around the world for betting, gaming, and viewing. There is also the sale of replica shirts. “We’ve done a lot of work in making the shirts more attractive, and we are working with the clubs to drive sales,” Williams said.
The prize money for winning the league is also of importance as well as qualification to the Caribbean Cup, a tournament run by CONCACAF, the governing body for football in the region.
“If a club finishes in the top three of the Jamaica Premier League, you qualify for the Caribbean Cup. For this, CONCACAF provides support of close to $30 million, which is massive,” Williams asserted.
The fifth opportunity cited was the sale of players.
“A cheap player in Europe is going for ₤250,000 pounds,” the PFJL president said.
Despite the commercial opportunities, Williams says he will refrain from investing in the league personally or through Proven. It would be a conflict of interest as chairman of the PFJL, and the investment would provide a relatively small return to an entity the size of Proven, he said.
Kamal Bankay, chairman of Dream Entertainment Limited, says he sees no direct synergy between football and the company’s core business of parties, such as Dream Weekend, but he noted otherwise that sport entertainment was arguably the biggest segment of the entertainment sector worldwide.
“There’s nothing in the concert/festival world that can compete with the Super Bowl, World Cup, Olympics, et cetera, so as an entertainment company, it diversifies us within our sector,” Bankay said.
“We believe that with the commercialisation of the different teams in the JPL and the professionalisation through the PFJL, football in Jamaica will grow exponentially, and we will ride the crest of that wave for the long-term benefit of the community and Dream Entertainment,” he said.
The events company is keeping the details of the financing agreement with Arnett Gardens Football Club private.
Asked about safety concerns regarding the club’s home base, the inner-city community of Arnett Gardens in Kingston, which has a history of violence, Bankay said football would help to keep the community peaceful.
“We believe that while football is being played, it helps the community to move away from violence. This is typical of sports nationally, so the more football the better. The better the team and the community does, the larger the vested interest in keeping football playing in Arnett Gardens,” he said.