Nike’s Nigeria deal shows performance pays off

Executives at the Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, have in the last few days been gleefully scanning their accounts, impressed by the global developments in their football portfolio.

With just over a week to the World Cup, Nike’s funky Nigeria national football team jerseys have sold out, through pre-orders, with three million purchases having been recorded at the Nike campus.

With each jersey selling at about $90 (Sh9,000), I estimate the American sportswear giants will bank in excess of Sh40 billion from the Nigerian 2018 World Cup account, with Sh27 billion garnered from “Super Eagles” World Cup jersey sales alone and the rest accruing from other “Naija” merchandise, including tracksuits, stadium bags, leisure wear and the stunning “Mercurial 360” luminous green and white football boots.

Indeed, a fitting reward for the experts at the Nike Explore Team Sports Research Lab and other research and development facilities in Beaverton that are awash with PhD and Masters degree holders who eat, sleep, drink thermoregulation, recovery, economy and other performance-related aspects of sports apparel and footwear.

Despite all their well-documented (mis)management issues, the Nigeria Football Federation officials in Abuja will most certainly receive a tidy sum from the Nike sales that will, in turn, help develop the game across their country.

In the current Nike contract cycle, Nigeria have reciprocated by winning, inter alia, five Fifa World Under-17 titles, an Olympic bronze medal, eight women’s Africa Cup of Nations titles with the “Super Eagles” qualification to the World Cup in Russia the icing on the cake.

The lesson we should learn from the Nigerian experience is that only such positive performances trigger massive support from sponsors and partners.

On the flip side, we also need to learn from the Italian experience.

A goalless draw with Sweden last November meant that Italy’s national team would not be travelling to Russia, the first time in 60 years.

Since 1934, the “Azzurri” have been regular campaigners at the World Cup, appearing 18 times and lifting the coveted trophy on four occasions in 1934, 1938, 1982 and 2006.

But their failure to bag a ticket to Russia triggered an estimated one billion Euros (Sh120 billion) loss for the country. Italy will endure missed revenues principally in advertising sales, television rights and World Cup merchandise.

The fact that the Puma-sponsored Italians would not be in Russia also dealt a major blow to bars, restaurants and tour operators who would all have cashed in on the “Azzurri” hype.

German sportswear giants Puma projected a $140 million (about Sh14 billion) loss in retail sales of the famous blue Italian jersey and related World Cup merchandise.

For all its sporting prowess, Kenya hasn’t made the breakthrough that would attract such mind boggling figures.

That aside, we don’t have a consistent national team strip and backstreet merchants get away with selling cheap, fake replicas of whatever strip they feel has the “Harambee Stars” look and feel.

Credit, though, must go to Nick Mwendwa’s Football Kenya Federation (FKF) for consistently organising friendly matches for the Stars ahead of their Africa Nations Cup qualifier against Ghana.

Last weekend’s 2-1 win over New Zealand in Mumbai was reassuring, coming hot on the heels of another narrow 1-0 win over Equatorial Guinea in Machakos, and should the Stars beat India in their next friendly, they will be psychologically boosted for the “Black Stars” qualifier.

More importantly, the Stars will slowly be developing themselves into a brand that could strike a conversation with Nike, Puma and other suitors eager to boost shirt sales.

That aside, I feel the current arrangement between Nike and the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (Nock) is heavily skewed in favour of the Americans, given the outstanding performances of our distance runners.

Currently, Nike give Nock Sh75 million annually in their contract that runs until 2020 with about Sh8 million in annual grants, hardly enough to sustain Nock’s about 30 federations in their competition, travel, administration and training needs.

But this is besides a special contract, of almost equal measure, with Athletics Kenya which doesn’t make for interesting reading either.

Should these federations win more gold medals and triumph in continental and global competitions, Nock will most certainly have a bigger bargaining power at Beaverton.

It doesn’t help, meanwhile, when we have cases of high-profile positive dope tests reported every other day, which only act to vilify Nike’s swoosh brand and deter other potential sponsors.

As it stands, Kenya will continue to deal from a position of disadvantage until we sanitize our sports and throw in title and medal-winning performances on a regular basis.

For the FKF, qualification to the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon and 2022 World Cup in Russia will be the game-changers.

Our marketing fate lies squarely in our hands.