Sport: Catalyst for development

Minister of Sport, Makhosini Hlongwane

By Tafadzwa Mapanzure and Talent Moyo

ZIMBABWE, as a developing country, has a lot of potential to use the sport industry to steer the socio-economic transformation of its people in a positive direction.
Sport is “any activity, experience, or business enterprise for which the primary focus and product is fitness, recreation, athletics, and leisure related”.
The sport industry is inclusive of sport goods production and retail, sport broadcasting, sport betting, sport tourism and events management to name but a few branches of what is shaping out to be a vast and lucrative industry throughout the world.
Sport, if properly administered, has the potential to positively impact the gross domestic product (GDP) of a nation.
In developing countries such as ours employment opportunities and labour in general is physically demanding.
Active participation in sports leads to participants’ improved physical and mental fitness.
In a work set up, employees who are physical fit tend to be more productive, and this is visible in blue-collar jobs that require physical prowess.
Research has determined that companies that have comprehensive wellness programmes for their employees tend to have higher productivity.
A good example is the promotion of active sports in mining towns, the participation in sport helps keep miners fit and strong for their physically demanding jobs.
A report released in 2016 indicated that government lost approximately US$2,5 million per annum assuming 10 percent of teachers absent themselves at least once a month.
That is a very small section of civil servants, assuming every sector had the same impact for the same percentage of absent employees for the year at the same rate, government is potentially losing tens of millions of dollars that could be better spent in economic development.
Absenteeism from work can handicap the performance of a company and leads to a negative impact on the GDP.
Not only is government the only institution that is affected, a survey showed that private companies are losing approximately US$300 million annually due to absenteeism.
The most common causes for absenteeism have been identified as stress, depression, fatigue and poor health issues.
With a well implemented employee wellness programme, absenteeism as a result of preventable and manageable health reasons can be reduced thereby increasing productivity and ultimately GDP.
Sport can act as a beacon for attracting foreign direct investment (FDI).
Hosting major and/or mega sport events results in positive nation branding, which in turn attracts FDI.
Association with successful sport events can create positive awareness for a country that can lead to FDI.
Countries like Brazil and Ivory Coast have managed to use soccer to counter the negative images they had/have as a drug country and war torn respectively.
If we take South Africa for example, they have used the Rugby World Cup of 1995 and the cricket world cup of 2003 for which they were the hosts to change the apartheid image that the world had of the country.
They were, as a result, accepted as part of the global community and recognised as a good investment destination.
They went on to host the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup and successfully rebranded themselves as a choice tourist destination.
They managed to minimise the high crime image that the international market had of the country and have shown the world that African countries have the capability of hosting what is arguably the biggest event in the world.
The hosting of major and/or mega sport events results in quantum infrastructure development, which in turn leads directly to the creation of employment opportunities.
Sport events come with development grants from tournament owners and international federations.
It gives a motive to embark on infrastructure development projects that ordinarily government or the private sector would never have considered.
Sport events promote inbound and outbound tourism which leads to more tax revenue.
The amount of travel necessitated by sport is phenomenal.
Every weekend fans travel across the country to watch different Premier Soccer League (PSL) fixtures.
If you add school sport travel, it’s clear to see that the receipts from sport related tourism is huge even though it remains largely incidental and not guided by policy.
Preventing and controlling ailments using exercise can result in savings on the national health bill.
In developing countries such as ours, the pressure on the fiscus leads to key institutions like health receiving far less than is needed.
Physical exercise can prevent and treat ailments related to sedentary behaviour such as, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and obesity, and decrease the risks of colon cancer, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, lipid disorders, depression and anxiety.
Preventing and treating such ailments using regular and supervised exercise can lead to savings on the national health bill.
A vibrant sport industry creates demand for sports products that can stimulate the local production of sporting goods & services thus lowering the import bill which is presently very high.
Most sport activities require specific equipment for participations for example, soccer participants will require soccer balls, soccer boots, soccer jerseys and shorts, goal posts etc.
All these sport goods can be manufactured and sold locally, potentially creating a lot of jobs, and this is just one of the many popular sports in Zimbabwe.
We are potentially sitting on billions of dollars in revenue that the country can make from the production and sale of locally produced sport equipment and apparel, not to mention the millions of jobs that will be created and the number of experts that will be employed in jobs that they are trained for.
In order to fully harness the economic potential of sport, the role of government and industry should go beyond organising dinners, sponsorship and corporate social responsibility to policy implementation and investment in the sports ecosystem.
There are ample opportunities for growth in associated businesses such as sports goods production and retail, sport management, sports medicine, infrastructure, media, event management and sport tourism.
Tafadzwa Mapanzure, contactable via email tmapanzure@tafsport.co.zw or by visiting www.tafsport.co.zw, is the managing director of TAF Sport (Pvt) Ltd, a sport management and marketing company. Talent Moyo is a sport management lecturer and researcher at Cape Peninsula University of Technology and is contactable through email tittiemoyo@gmail.com.