MARKETING MIX, MEDIA AND ECONO-GOVERNMENTAL INDICES AS PREDICTORS OF THE NIGERIA SPORTS BRAND

Abstract

The Nigeria Sports Brand (NSB) is a construct that expresses Nigeria’s ultimate intentions towards sports development, as reflected in the National Sports Policy (2009) and the Sports Industry Policy (2020). However, the NSB still performs far below expectations in relation to sports branding predictive indices (Marketing Mix Indices – MMI, Media Indices – MI, Economic Indices – EI and Governmental Indices – GI). Previous studies focused largely on sports development in Nigeria, with little consideration for these predictive indices. This study, therefore, was designed to investigate MMI (production, price, promotion and place of sports), MI (sports new media, sports print, sports radio and sports television), EI (Sports Gross Domestic Product [SGDP], Sports Production and Consumption [SPC], Sports Manufacturing and Trade [SMT] and real income) and GI (government proprietorship, government policy, government issues and public-private partnership) as predictors of the NSB. The study was anchored to the Ripple Effect and Maslow’s Human Motivation theories, while the mixed methods design (QUAN+qual) was adopted. Four accessible geopolitical zones were purposively selected, and four states were randomly selected in each zone. One hundred and ninety-six sports policy makers and officials, 48 sports federation officers across the zones were selected using stratified random sampling technique, while 528 athletes, 240 sports enthusiasts and 48 sports media personnel were selected through convenience sampling. The purposive sampling technique was adopted for the selection of 240 coaches. Key informant interviews were conducted with zonal sports coordinators. The instruments used were Production of Sports (r=0.71), Place of sports (0.71), Promotion of sports (r=0.72), Real income (r=0.72), SPC (r=0.72), Price of sports (r=0.73), SGDP (r=0.73), Sports print (r=0.74), SMT (r=0.74), Sports radio (r=0.75), Sports new media (r=0.76), Sports television (r=0.77), Nigeria Sports Brand (r=0.77), Government policy (r=0.79), Government issues (r=0.80), Government proprietorship (r=0.81) and Public-private partnership (r=0.81). The quantitative data were analysed using Pearson product moment correlation and multiple regression at 0.05 level of significance, while the qualitative data were thematically analysed. Participants were mostly male (64.4%), aged 28.65±5.39 years. Sports television (r=0.05), SPC (r=0.05), government proprietorship (r=0.06), sports radio (r=0.08), sports new media (r=0.09), sports print (r=0.13), Place of sports (r=0.15), government policy (r=0.26), SMT (r=0.30) and public-private partnership (r=0.60) positively correlated with NSB. There was a significant joint contribution of the predictors on NSB (F(4;1291)=57.27; Adj. R2=0.15), accounting for 15.0% of its variance. Sports new media (ß=0.15), government issues (ß=-0.15), sports print (ß=0.16), government policy (ß=-0.16), place of sports (ß=0.18), production and consumption (ß=-0.22), sports television (ß=-0.25), manufacturing and trade (ß=0.45) and public-private partnership (ß=-0.60) contributed significantly to NSB. Sports coordinators indicated that, whereas policy content was consistent, NSB was mainly impeded by poor implementation, insufficient funding, domineering role of government, poor sports pricing, poor media, ineffective marketing, and insufficient and substandard sports production. Place of sports, sports media, sports production and consumption, sports manufacturing and trade, governmental proprietorship, quality government involvement and public-private partnership positively influenced the Nigeria Sports Brand. If these are prioritised in policy implementation, the NSB will compete effectively globally.