Time to take the Bok brand international

SPOTLIGHT: The Springbok brand has outgrown the South African commercial market and needs to be dollar-based.

Talks with the Ackerley Sports Group (ASG) are in an advanced stage with SA Rugby expecting to get the final approval from the Saru board by the end of September to finalise the deal.

ASG is an American company that is an expansion of an investment company established in 2002 by brothers Ted and Christopher Ackerley. Ackerley Partners has owned all or a part of several professional sports franchises in American basketball, ice hockey, soccer, and rugby.

In a sit-down with SA Rugby CEO Rian Oberholzer recently, he explained that there were two reasons why the equity partnership was necessary.

Firstly it would take the brand overseas and secondly, it would help SA Rugby build reserve funds, which it doesn’t have at the moment.

“If anything happens again in world rugby, at least we will have a reserve of money that we have put away which would include a windfall for our members.

“The more lucrative the investment is for them, the better it is for SA Rugby,” Oberholzer explained.

He added that the Springbok brand is commercially three times smaller than that of the All Blacks at the moment.

The Ackerley deal would be worth R1.3 billion and offer the Springboks the chance to dollar-base its brand.

The current main sponsor of the Springboks is worth R3 million and that contract expires November next year. It is evident that plans are already being made to replace that with an international sponsor.

“Somewhere we are doing something wrong,” Oberholzer says.

“We have to take our product out of South Africa. We have outgrown the South African market if we are brutally honest with ourselves.

“The gap between us and the other international brands is massive.

“We never went outside of South Africa to try to sell it, it was never our strategy to sell abroad.

“Not one of New Zealand’s three sponsors is New Zealand companies.

“We have not one non-South African sponsor.

“When we started working on what our jersey is worth, we went back to all our sponsors and explained the process we were busy with.

“There was shock and surprise, but they understood when we explained it to them.

“We are not saying there is no space for them, but they might not have the space they were used to for the money they are willing to pay.

“If they are willing to pay more, they will be accommodated.”

Oberholzer explained that the Sprinbok brand is recognised internationally and as such, it no longer makes sense to keep its sponsors purely local.

“We cannot hinder ourselves and put ourselves on the back foot in the international market that we compete in.

“We have to dollar-base ourselves.

“We have to get our brand outside of South Africa.

“If you look at the last two matches we played in London against the All Blacks and Wales, we filled Twickenham stadium twice to South Africans. The majority of supporters were expats.

“We are not talking to them, we are not selling our product to them. They love us being there, but we are not helping them to feel truly proud.

“It is due to Rassie [Erasmus] and the team – the way they have changed the brand.

“That is where the equity partner is going to play a major role – establishing our brand outside of South Africa.

“I think it is going to be a huge positive for the Springboks, our brand, and our growth going forward.”