UN-BUNDLING ZAMBIA RUGBY UNION NATIONAL TEAMS (Sports Management Companies - bridging the gap between Sport and Corporates)

Running rugby at the national level is a mammoth task and it is always look easier from the outside than it really is. The Zambia Rugby Union currently has to oversee five active teams, the Men’s and Women’s 15s teams, the Men’s and Women’s 7s teams and the Under 20 Men’s team. In an ideal situation the ZRU has to actively have an Under 20 Women’s team and Under 16 boys and girls’ team as that it is the only way it can ensure that there is continuous growth and predetermined pathways to the national teams.

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For all the teams to perform well, it means that the teams need to have adequate international game time with other teams both within and outside the region. The game time of course will come at a cost as for the teams to prepare adequately the players need a minimum of four weeks camping before they can participate competitively with other teams.

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Camping is one of the biggest expenses for the national teams as the teams require accommodation, meals, training kit and of course what is now a controversial subject and that is compensation for their time away from home. We have to appreciate that the most of the players and technical bench have day jobs whilst some are running businesses and time away from work potentially means loss of income but that is a whole new subject that will be dealt with at later time.

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Travelling expenses is also a big cost especially if the teams have to fly to the host countries and also insurance and medical requirements have to be taken care of as well. The cost of camping a 15s team at bare minimum cost for 4 weeks can easily be in the region of about a Kwacha Five Hundred Thousand (K500,000.00) if you have to pay for accommodation.

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This cost gives you an idea of what it would take to camp 5 teams and ensure they have at least 2 engagements per year….bare minimum cost is Kwacha Two Million Five Hundred (K2,500,000.00) minus air tickets and take note this is average camp. Money is not the only challenge that is facing the ZRU but also the human resource component….do we have sufficient volunteers to run the Secretariat aspects required to effectively run the 5 teams. Are the volunteers adequately compensated for their time and given the capacity and is there a chance that we will one day have sponsorship that will end our funding troubles.

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If one has to project into the future and also look at where we are coming from, we can project that things are unlikely to change until the time we may have TV Broadcast rights.

We believe that one of the solutions to solve our capacity woes is to unbundle the ZRU teams and thereby unbundle the work load of the ZRU EXCO. The unbundling takes the form of making smaller Committees that will run the various teams independently with supervision of the ZRU. The ZRU can give a mandate to these committees for example to run the Under 20,the 7s team etc and remain with the 15s as the flagship team of the country and as you well know the pride of any rugby nation is in its 15s team. This is nothing strange or new and has been tested. One just has to look across the Zambezi and see how South Africa and Zimbabwe is running its rugby to realize that this is a workable solution.

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The unbundling of the teams gives an opportunity to bring on board certain human resource expertise that will complement those that are in the ZRU already and the power of synergy can be exploited. It will also mean that the ZRU will have less teams to worry about and therefore be able to maximize the resource it is bale to mobilize. It has been said by many and is now cliché that we have to run rugby as business and definitely this is what Sports Management Companies do …run sport as a business….there is need to monetize the talent in this country and the Sports Management Companies have the necessary skill sets to do just that starting form marketing and sourcing finance.

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The strategy has worked before and changed the landscape of sports in this country and we can use it again. The other teams will also be able to benefit from this by proximity.The old saying that money attracts money is true and we believe that we will score positives on all parties because ZRU will be able to manage their flagship teams better as they will have less burden and the Sports Management companies will also be able perform better because they would not want to mess up with their mandate and lose the money they would have invested in the teams.

Soccer in Zambia is unbundling to the point of even unbundling the national league…we have to adapt or die.

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The million dollar question is are there any Sports Management companies willing to take the risk…well we may never know if we don’t try to find out but one thing for sure is that if it works in Zimbabwe why can’t it work here….if it worked here before successfully why can’t it work again.

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This option of partnership with the Sports Management companies can be used at club level as well especially where the hosting of tournaments are involved. There are a lot of Event Management companies who know there way around the Corporate world and can lend their expertise to sport as well and help bridge the gap between the corporates and the rugby world.

I can only imagine the PR Girl Media Digital Events or R&G Events lending their hand to a rugby tournament and how we would grow our audience and expand the spectator/sponsor/player experience at the games. We need to sell the rugby lifestyle experience.