Early in March this year South Africa and Australia played a one day match at the Wanderers in Johannesburg that sport commentators called the greatest ever. Australia batted first, achieving a world record score of 434. It was an impossible task, but South Africa came out, capped the score and won the one day series three games to two. The nation’s psyche lifted. On Monday morning newspapers around South Africa featured the match as the front page lead, carrying headlines like “SA Cricket’s Greatest Day” and “The Greatest Game in History”.
In the days following the game, radio stations were inundated with ecstatic callers. Newspapers’ letters pages were packed with joyful letters. People spoke about the match at the office, in bank queues and at dinner. It was impossible not to be affected by the positive mood.
It was reminiscent of South Africa’s victory over New Zealand in the 1995 Rugby World Cup. South Africans of all races celebrated together on the streets. It was a difficult time. Apartheid had just ended and the nation was fearful and racially divided. But the victory lifted the psyche of the country – as it does everywhere when a popular team wins. Everyone knows how the productivity levels soar in Liverpool when their team wins the FA Cup. But what effect does a winning or a losing team have on the sales of sport print titles?
Nic Wides, publishing director of Touchline Media, says the psyche of the nation plays an important role in magazine sales. Sport Illustrated‘s biggest seller is still the June 1995 issue detailing South Africa’s victory in the Rugby World Cup. “People want to know about the sports personalities when the teams are playing well,” he says.
In bad times sales are not nearly as good. For example, when the then captain of the South African cricket team, Hansie Cronje, admitted to fixing matches, sales flagged. “We had incredible exclusive content on Hansie but the magazines sales were stagnant,” Wides says. The same happens when teams are losing. Magazines try to overcome the negativity by analysing what is going wrong with sport. “In bad times we try to provide a critical look at sport for fans. People want to understand what is going wrong,” he says.
One would expect advertisers might cut back in the bad times. Sponsors, after all, dumped Cronje once he had admitted his involvement in match fixing. But Wides says advertisers have always remained faithful, even when the news was negative.
Touchline Media, which is part of Naspers’ Media 24, owns most of South Africa’s sports magazines. According to Wides, the group’s magazines are all doing well at the moment, with some outperforming others because they represent more popular sports.
Sports magazines focusing on niches, such as golf, rugby, running and cycling, have proved globally successful. “The titles all do well so long as the sports offer high consumer appeal,” Wides says. These titles are challenged by high exposure on the electronic media, but multi-sport magazines, such as Touchline’s SA Sports Illustrated (SASI) face an even greater challenge. SASI, which sells around 40,000 copies each issue, is unique in that it is just one of a handful of multi-sport titles in the world. The United Kingdom, for instance, does not have a multi-sport magazine and its market is dominated by niche publications. Much of the information people want can be gained in alternative media sources such as the internet and newspapers.
Richard Maguire, editorial director of the soccer magazine, Kick Off, says sales depend largely on the mood of Bafana Bafana and Kaizer Chiefs supporters. “Generally, if we have a poor sale we often conclude that supporters are in a depressed mood,” he says.
Before the African Nations Cup in Egypt there was an air of expectancy among fans. The magazine sold 68,000 copies. Two weeks later, after Bafana were knocked out of the tournament in the first round, sales dropped to 61,000. In that issue, the magazine had a cover about the bad boys of soccer. “It may have been that there was just too much negative news.”
Sales also suffer if Kaizer Chiefs, who have 60 percent of the country’s soccer supporters behind them, start losing. Maguire says in the past year, with Bafana’s poor performances, the magazine’s advertising sales team has had to work around the clock. “As an editor I have had to attend a lot more sales meetings. We have had to convince people to focus on the World Cup in 2010. We have also had to answer a lot more questions. There has been quite a lot of negativity, but we are doing quite well. In fact we are selling more ad space than we were a year ago.”
This is a long way from the golden era of SA soccer in 1996 and 1998. “Back then you could put anything on the cover and the magazine would sell.” Maguire says now the World Cup in 2010 is the holy grail. “You can actually see people who are nowhere near soccer scrambling to get space,” he says.
Peter du Toit, the editor of the Media 24 weekly newspaper Soccer-Laduma, says the periodical has been growing in the past five years and has never experienced a downturn. “Most newspapers and magazines are in a plateau market, so events like the Soccer World Cup or the poor performance by Bafana or Kaizer Chiefs will affect sales for them,” he says. “This is almost our tenth year and we are still growing. If the teams do well, who knows, we may do even better.
“It’s obvious that a better performance by the national team affects things. If the national team does well in the World Cup everyone’s sales rise. When people are happy they spend money.”
Five reporters work for Soccer-Laduma, which has a circulation of around 300,000 and aims to reach 500,000. With such success, heading into Africa is the next step. “Are we thinking of launching Soccer-Laduma in other parts of Africa,” Du Toit says. “It’s on our minds.”
He is not entirely upbeat. With the 2010 Soccer World Cup approaching, he predicts that soccer print sales could stagnate across the board. “What will probably happen is that everyone will do a World Cup publication. With every newspaper, magazine and news broadcast doing its piece, the market will be saturated,” he says.
Publishers have indeed shown an eagerness to hop on the soccer bandwagon as 2010 approaches. Johncom Media has launched SoccerLife, a lifestyle, soccer magazine. Circulation increased by 56% to 27,304 for the period July to December 2005. Subscriptions alone have risen by 360%. “With South Africa hosting the Soccer World Cup, there is an ever increasing interest and hunger for knowledge in our national sport,” says the magazine’s business manager, Mark Murphy.
Rob Houwing, the editor of Wisden Cricketer, says sometimes there is even a hunger for bad news. “We sometimes thrive during the leanest times, which tells you people’s appetite for sport is insatiable.” Take, for example, the recent test series in Australia. The Proteas were whipped, but with a series now being played at home, supporters are getting their flags out.
“Fans always think they can win when a series is played on their home turf,” Houwing says. “In the end it’s all about being on your toes and producing the best possible magazine every month. If you produce one that is sub-standard, it won’t sell.”
Highbury Safika Media publishes the South African Rugby Union’s magazines, including SA Rugby. It also published SA Cricket. Former rugby journalist and Springbok spokesperson Mark Keohane is now the publishing director at Highbury Safika.
If Jean de Villiers and Schalk Burger are featured on the cover of SA Rugby, sales are huge, says Keohane. “We would love to feature either of them on each cover, but obviously we can’t do that,” he says. In cricket the big seller is Jacque Kallis. “People just seem to love the way he is playing. As soon as we have him on the cover the sales are up.”
Keohane is bothered by the tendency for sales to drop when black players are featured on the cover. He says last year the magazine featured winger Brian Habana when he was playing at his peak. Sales were significantly lower. “The next month we featured a white player and the sales went up again.”
The same happens with cricket. “This tells us that we haven’t broken the mindset of our readers,” Keohane says. “We will continue to challenge this. We like to think that our magazines speak to both white and black readers so long as they enjoy rugby or cricket.”
He says his magazines’ biggest competitor is SASI. Each magazine offers the reader more than the other, he says. “People who buy these magazines enjoy their sport and are not choosing one title over the other.”
Not all sport print titles are affected by the mood of the nation. Stuart Mclean, the editor of Golf Digest, says the magazine sales tend to increase when Ernie Else or Tiger Woods are on the cover. Special features such as The Top 100 golf courses survey and a preview of the masters tournament also push sales. The magazine’s circulation remains largely stable, so a victory by Els or Retief Goosen does not have a massive impact on sales. Golf Digest, like the magazine Runners World, focuses on giving tips to golfers and runners. “It’s tips from Tiger Woods that keeps people coming back,” he says.
Overview of the sport titles
The sport category has grown by 50% since 2002, and most titles have grown, while four new titles were launched: Bicycling, The Wisden Cricketer, Soccer Life and SA Rugby.
Since 2002 magazine circulations have, overall, grown by around 14%.
The highest selling sports magazine in SA is Kick Off, SASI is the second largest sports magazine.
South Africa’s two soccer magazines are Kick Off (circulation 62,490 in the July to December 2005 ABC) and Soccer Life (circulation 27,304 in the same period)
(SASI, which turns 20 this year, is the only multi-sports magazine in SA to have survived. Two of the magazine’s core editorial areas are rugby and cricket and it significantly outsells the two magazines that focus on those sports. SASI circulation in the last ABC (July to December 2005) was 38,879, while SA Rugby was 13,986. SA Cricket has not had an ABC since the first half of 2001, when it was 16,845.
The two golf magazines in South Africa compete closely. Golf Digest had an ABC of 25,872 in the July to December 2005 period, while Compleat Golfer was on 19,670. Since 2002, Golf Digest‘s circulation has grown 38% and Compleat Golfer has declined by 10%.
In early 2003 Bicycling was launched in a market which had previously only had Ride. Ride‘s last ABC was 11,538 (January to July 2005, as it was late submitting for the latest ABC) and Bicycling has grown from 10,606 in 2003 to an ABC of 20,257 in the latest ABC period, showing a whopping 91% growth.
Sport magazine revenues
According to Adex (Dec 04 – Nov 05), the sport category accounts for about R84 million in ad revenue a year. (Not all titles are in Adex, but this give an indication of the size of this market).
Within that R84 million, SASI saw ad revenues of R22 million over the year, Kick Off had R18 million and Golf Digest R16 million.