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Table 4.6 Perceived limitations of Cape Town city’s brand
Funding and investment
Social challenges
Emerging city
Economic affordability
Public transport system
Internationally required sporting facilities
Congested city centre
Geographic point of Cape Town
Climate
The next section looks at the perceptions regarding the role of stakeholders involved in the development of Cape Town‟s sport brand.
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Figure 4.7: Sport brand stakeholders of Cape Town
Sport brand stakeholders for Cape Town
E.g. Sporting federations/ clubs/
organisations
Western Province Rugby
Western Province Cricket
Ajax Cape Town FC
DHL Stormers
Cape Cobras E.g. Sporting
events
Cape Town Cycle Tour
Two Oceans Marathon
E.g. Tourism/
Marketing organisations
Cape Town Tourism
City of Cape Town E.g. Sport
sponsors
Adidas
Puma
form” (Director of Place and Destination Marketing, COCT). Describing the effect of a non positive city brand, the Marketing Manager at Adidas CT responded: “Very important, without a positive brand you won‟t have successful events which then leads to us not having success within that event”. Similarly another stakeholder noted: “If there is an opportunity to follow your team and it‟s in Cape Town, I think it‟s very good to have a positive Cape Town brand and I think they go hand in hand; our brand and the Cape Town brand” (Communications Manager, WPRA).
Interestingly, from a business perspective, a respondent gave insight into the growth of business, sporting or otherwise. A positive Cape Town brand is perceived to be important for
“the ease of doing business as well as for the growing of businesses” (Marketing Manager, ACT). Without a positive city brand the respondent suggested that the city will not generate potential tourists and businesses will bear the brunt of this.
The following two sections look specifically at the identification of city brand stakeholders in the sport context of their relationships.
4.9.1 Identifying the main sport brand stakeholders
The majority of stakeholders struggled to identify who the main sport brand stakeholders are, as they believed “it doesn‟t matter where you sit everybody believe that they have a say,”
hence, “you cannot limit it to sport stakeholders” (Director, CTCTT). Figure 4.8 below illustrates the perceived sport brand stakeholders of the city, as identified by the respondents.
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There is a view that perhaps some of these clusters of stakeholders may be more important than others in terms of the sport brand. For example, “sporting federations are the most important to the Cape Town sport brand” (Chief Director of Sport and Recreation, WCPG).
Another example of this: “Obviously the big names e.g. rugby, soccer and cricket (federations), go with how much sponsorship they have attracted and so on, so I think they have a critical role to play” (Brand and Communications Manager, CT Stadium).
Along with federations, equally important were Cape Town sporting events. Based on the amount of sport participants and tourists which these events attract, the Marketing Manager at ACT responded:
“Obviously it would be the main sports, whether it is Western Province and the Stormers, Ajax Cape Town, and the Cobras, but I would go back to the big events that have grown over the years, so it is not actually a sport team but events that now attract 30 thousand people like the Argus Cycle Tour and the Two Oceans that have evolved into these huge events. They are equally important to Cape Town‟s sport brand because they bring in people”.
This implies that tourism/ marketing organisations and sport sponsors are less important as they were not elaborated on.
4.9.2 Stakeholder relationships
It was important to understand how stakeholders interact and work together toward a common goal in developing the Cape Town sport brand. It was also important to establish whether there were any challenges that these stakeholders experienced during their collaboration. An earlier response from the Director of the CTCTT which was linked to the question: “Who is ultimately responsible for promoting the city of Cape Town?” indicates a clear challenge among the perceptions of some stakeholders of the collaboration of city stakeholders.
Despite these perceptions, the general impression across respondents was that there are well-established relationships between the Cape Town sport brand and city stakeholders.
With regards to organisational disputes, the Chief Director of Sport and Recreation at WCPG stated:
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“All the organisations have their agreements and disagreements but one of the nice things is that we have quarterly meetings with all organisations and when we are at the quarterly meetings everyone is mature and we are able to have discussions”.
However, a particular stakeholder, the CEO at WPCA, identified a disconnection in their relationship with city stakeholders. Although this was a new revelation of stakeholders‟
perceptions, it is not surprising, due to the private nature of the ownership of this particular sporting code and stadia. The CEO‟s response is stated below:
“The city can massively add to what‟s happening. Cricket is actually, despite the beauty of the space and the quality of the performances that one sees here, it‟s actually very vulnerable financially and actually needs the city to be working much more closely with them and I think the city itself realises the success and wants to help. In actual fact, on the marketing side, there is very little that happens”.
All brand stakeholders are believed to contribute to the Cape Town city brand. Although sport federations were largely perceived as the main sport brand stakeholders of the city, it was justified by the amount of sponsors it attracts. As stakeholder cohesion is further indicated, the next theme highlights the future plans and strategic developments of these stakeholder organisations in positioning the sport brand of Cape Town.