Nigeria Football Market Report 2022 -The Disruptive Growth of Sponsorships this Year

  

The Cost of Nigeria's Failure to Qualify for Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup 

We can't overemphasize it, Nigeria is perhaps the biggest football market in Africa and deserve to be developed and made economically viable. Nigeria’s Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare has on several occasions acknowledged that funding is the major problem of sports development. 

According to the minister, “Funding is a major hindrance to sports growth and needed about $500 million yearly investment to become viable in next 10 years or so. We look forward to corporate bodies lending support and developing the sports. We want to see corporate organisations come to build stadia and invest in sports at several levels."

"We intend to harness the talents and build technical capacity to attract fans (Consumers) and Sponsors(Users) both locally and internationally. We want to build a business model around sports because sports is a big business in the western world and we intend to make it a big business in Nigeria" he explained in his presentation in 2021.

Most of the sports market in Nigeria is built around football. This year 2022 promised a lot of acceleration in the transformation plan as the Nigeria senior men national team looked good to make impact at 2021 African cup of Nation (AFCON), which actually took place in Cameroon January 2022 and World Cup Play-off in April. 

The biggest mistake which NFF may have later realised (whether admitted or not) was the sacking of Gernot Rohr at the wrongest time and the enforcing of Austin Eguaveon as the interim head coach led to a total failure for both AFCON and the World Cup Play-off against Ghana. This unexpected failure, so to say, distruptively changed the metrics of the whole sports market in Nigeria this year 2022 

This years Nigeria football market report features:

• NFF Self funding Agenda and growing National team sponsorships hit the rock

• Growth in Shirt Sponsorships in the domestic league and How the Rascality of NPFL clubs are pulling down the league

• The failure of  NPFL TV App (OTT) subscriptions and thenff.tv channel on YouTube growing popularity may have started to  attract advertisers

• The effects of hacking Bet9ja website and the continual entrance of new brands set-off Intensive brand war in the Nigeria sports betting Market.

• How Victor Osimhen emerged the brand face of Nigerian football and Henry Onyekuru keep growing as the most followed Nigerian footballer on Social Media 

1. NFF self funding strategy through the Sponsorship of the national teams and FIFA allocations for countries that qualified for the world Cup, may have hit the rock after Super Eagles failed to progress in AFCON 2021 and lost out in the FIFA World Cup playoff against Ghana.

Prior to AFCON, in December 2021, NFF claimed that it has reached about 95% of its self funding target as they closed lucrative deals with Peace Air (NGN300 million), Premier Lotto (NGN400 million), Revolution Plus (NGN500 million), MTN (NGN500 million), Dettol (NGN250 Million)... 

NFF actually shot themselves on the foot by sacking the German- tactician, Gernot Rohr, who had led the Super Eagles through a winning way without playing such enterprising or do I say, entertaining formations). Now, NFF have to pay Rohr NGN157 million for breach of contract and most of the sponsors are back pedaling... Perhaps, most of the sponsoeship deal were based on Super Eagles performances and progression to the world cup, which didn't happen.

Again, Nigeria has now lost the opportunity to receive the sum of over $10 million from FIFA due to her failure to qualify for the Qatar 2022 World Cup in November 2022.

According to the findings revealed by Nairametrics that FIFA had paid Nigeria at least $9.5 million after the 2018 World Cup to help the qualified teams prepare well for the tournament. Sources expect the global football body to pay up to €12.2 million to participating nations after the 2020 World Cup tournament to help the qualified teams prepare well for the tournament.

2. Increase in Shirt Sponsorship in the Domestic League this Year

We saw a push growth in the Shirt Sponsorship as Eunisell continued to support Rivers United and increased their Sponsorship value to NGN100 million. Bet9ja renewed it's sponsorsship deal with 3SC (NGN30 million) and ValueJet Airline also Sponsored Remo Stars to a tune of NGN30 million. Sterling bank signed NGN50 million shirt sponsorship with Bendel Insurance and Peculiar Ultimate Concerns even signed a shirt sponsorship deal with a female football team, Edo Queens, worth (NGN35 million)

But Rascality by some of NPFL clubs may be dragging the league further down. The return of hooliganism has down ticket sales by over 45% in most NPFL games as some clubs are banished to a far away state and some forced to play behind close doors in an empty stadium.

For instance, earlier in the ongoing season at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Staium in Bauchi, a mob of unruly football fans attacked the referee over alleged bias after Wikki played out a goalless draw against Rangers at home. Furious fans threw stones at the referee and pelted him and other officials with water sachets until security operatives in the stadium rescued him.

In another incident during the match-day 23 of this season at the Sani Abacha Stadium, fans of Kano Pillars descended on the visiting Katsina United, hitting them and damaging their bus after the encounter ended goalless. The fans of the home team stormed the pitch and even outside the stadium, laying siege on the visitors and damaging all that belonged to them.

In yet another ugly incident this season, fans of Wikki Tourists threw caution to the wind in Bauchi during one of the week 19 games, as they descended on the visiting Enyimba of Aba players, causing injuries to some of their players.

In similar incidents since the ongoing league season started, Lobi Stars and Gombe United were forced to play one of their home fixtures without fans following separate incidents on match-day 14...etc

3. NPFL TV APP Subscription was a total failure. Fans refuse to pay NGN1,500 subscription for a month. In fact, only 10,000 fans downloaded the App for a free trial earlier in 2021. But 2022, the use of App fell to only 500 users and today as I write NPFL TV is as good as dead (RIP). With the current state of the league, football fans in Nigeria are not interested in consuming (watching the league) even for free. They prefer to watch Premier League and Champions League in viewing center or their device.

Surprisely, thenff TV channel on YouTube began to grow in popularity during AFCON in January, with live interview of Super Eagles stars and videos of happenings inside the camp and training ground (the fun, quarrels, bickerings, tactical talks) became very popular among football fans. Most of the videos recorded over 5 million views on the YouTube channels. An inside source told our reporters that the YouTube channel have been attracting advertisers with an income of over $5000 monthly.

4. The Black cats Hacking of Bet9ja website may have shaken the dominance of the Kunle Soname owned online Sports betting platform in Nigeria. With agitations from consumers not able to access their account and deposits or win pay outs, may have caused other competing brands to launch out massive advertisement campaigns. But Soname and his team were able to quel the storm in less than two weeks and re-assured costumers with loyalty bonuses.

New sports betting brands are entering the market very other day this year. Mozzartbet, Bet winner, Pari-bet, Paripesa and Bet-Bonanza have been making giant strides in the market this year with intensive promotional strategies.However, the market is still dominanted by Bet9ja, Betking, Betway and 1×bet; cuminatively sharing 68% of online bets from Nigeria.

5. Victor Osimhen's eyes protective mask he usually wear nowadays are gradually becoming his brand identity. Osimhen is gradually becoming the brand face of Nigerian football. 70% of 20,000 fans we asked across Nigeria said if they think of Nigeria football they think of Osimhen and 22% said Kelechi Iheanacho, 8% said Ahmed Musa and 6% Wilfred Ndidi. 

Media reviews about Nigerian football this year 2022, 33%of reports on Nigerian national team were centered on Osimhen, including photos and videos displayed. And 48% media buzz on Nigerian players abroad was also centered on Osimhen. 

Henry Onyekuru Grew from 2.5 million in 2021 and now 3.7 million followers on Instagram

However, Social media following were entirely different as Henry Onyekuru remained the online superstar, ahead of Alex Iwobi and Assisat Oshoala. Onyekuru grew followers on Instagram alone from 2.5 million in 2021, to currently 3.7 million in 2022. What all this portend for market intelligence.