Sports Finance

I ran a story here a couple of days ago about how the Sports Trust is giving money away to different sporting codes that dearly need the money. Well done to them, I say, and long may it continue. The Sports Trust raises money from people like you and me. People who love sport, events and the faces around the sport. Golf days, quiz evenings and talks all go together to create a very succesful fund raising opperation.

Then there is the Lotto, who also do great things for the cinderalla sports. Some people aren't happy that money from the Lotto goes to sport, but sport does good things, sometimes. Cricket to get children off the streets in Cape Town, lifesaving to help people from not dieing comes to mind.

Weekly, on my radio show, I hear some of these smaller sports asking, no, begging for sponsorship. They keep telling me that the big money goes to the big sports. Who are these big sports? Soccer, sure, cricket, of course and then the big one, RUGBY! The traditional game played by white Afrikaans people who are racist, that according to some people in the South African Government. But that's for another day and another time.

If these three sports are sucking all of the sponsorship money from around the country, where is it going?

Today on the Supersport Zone, Dan Retief writes that the Lions and the Western Province are in financial trouble. He also mentions Boland which is a laughing stock in the world of rugby, by no fault of thier own. If these Unions are in tourble then where is the money that keeps being thrown at rugby?

Cricket seems well off. Players are off in the Carribean now playing a world cup and the team is made up of the right amount of "players of colour".

Football should have the biggest winfall. 2010 is only a few years away, new stadia are being built and houses are being rented out as we speak, but is it as well as we think it is? The answer is NO. Some players can barely make ends meet every month and most teams, even in the PSL, the top league in the richest league in Africa, are saying that they can't get sponsors. WHY??

Someone, sort this out.....

If the big three are getting ALL of the sponsor money, what is going to happen to the smaller sports in South Africa?