Introduction
The UAE is made up of seven emirates and Abu Dhabi is the capital. “The rest are Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain” (Central Intelligence Agency, 2011). The region is highly recognized for petroleum, natural gas, metals, tourism and in the recent past, real estate. Sport is considered as one of its main social and cultural activities, and enjoys a lot of sporting activity each year.
According to Jain (2007), “association football is the national sport of the United Arab Emirates. Emirates soccer clubs Al-Ain, Al-Wasl, Al-Shabaab ACD, Al-Sharjah, Al-Wahda and Al-Ahli are the most popular teams and enjoy the reputation of long-term regional champions”. High levels of rivalry between teams make the activities exciting and each team enjoys a significantly big audience from the citizens.
Football in the UAE is governed by the UAE Football Association. Domestic competitions include UAE League Division 1 and 2, UAE Premier League, UAE Super Cup, UAE Vice Presidents Cup and the Etisalat Emirates Cup.
The UAE national football team enjoys a lot of support from locals but has not been doing very well at global competitions. The team last qualified for world cup in 1990 but in 2007 won the Gulf Cup Championship held in the capital emirate of UAE. The two other national teams are the Under-20 football team and the under-17 football team.
Football and media
The UAE government has been putting in a lot of effort to promote good media relations between stakeholders in the game and the media. It is also doing a lot to market the game by encouraging the media to get more involved.
As reported by Seven Media (2010), “the UAE football league’s professional football league wanted a new way to promote matches and drive fans to the stadium through an effective and practical match day program that would be inserted into more than 50,000 newspapers”.
The government further understands that involving the media more as a measure may not be very helpful if it is not done in a professional manner. As a result, it has been involving the services of professionals who have the ability to promote both the relations and the game, as well as ensure that there are maximum benefits from partnerships between media and football.
In 2008, MP & Silva (MPS) was appointed as the media adviser of UAE Football League. According to Oxford Business Group (2010), “the leading international sports marketing agency, has been appointed as the exclusive media adviser of the domestic market, and the exclusive international rights holder UAE Football League (UFL)-the UAE newly created top-tier professional football league”.
Football, the internet and the social media
“Social media has influenced and manipulated the way we interact with internet and the way we interact with each other” (Boyle & Richard, 2009). As the author further explains, the internet has so far been the biggest blessing to the game. The ability to stream games live has enabled media houses to grow their audience by over 100% in the last five years. Travelers are now able to watch games on the move.
People in the villages can watch games through phones that have access to the internet. During major games, some employers allow employees a break to watch the games, which they easily do from their computers. In this age and era, there is no excuse for any game-lover to miss a game. This trend translates to a bigger audience and bigger revenues for marketers and media houses.
The social media further creates excitement in the game by communicating every small detail to the fans and other stakeholders. Dissatisfied stakeholders such as fans can air their dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the game in a timelier manner. Accessing tickets and schedules has been made easier by the social media and sports websites.
They are also among the most significant avenues through which media companies earn revenues through advertisements. Experts predict that in the next few years, revenues from online advertisements will surpass those from television and print media (Boyle & Richards, 2004).
Apart from having good revenues, it is the most appropriate and effect avenue for the UAE to market its football games to the locals and the global audience.
Role of media in growing football
Football in the UAE has come a long way in growth. The media can further use tourism success to market the game. When different football seasons are running, the number of tourists goes up due to the high level of activity. However, this is only possible when enough awareness is created.
The European leagues have fans that travel from all over the world to watch the game. They not only increase the games revenues, they play a role in the region’s development through improved tourism activity. The media plays a big role by marketing the games and the thrill that comes with them.
The amount of recognition a country gets from different stakeholders in different games depends with their marketing strategies (Kambitsis, et al., 2002). Using the media to sell a region’s capabilities make them attractive hosts for major tournaments. A good example is the upcoming world cup in Qatar.
The peak of football action in the UAE and gulf region will be the 2022 world cup in Qatar. The bid to host the world cup was met with a lot of skepticism over the region’s ability to host such a tournament. Many questions arose from the fact that football in the region has not received very little attention from the global media.
After winning the bid, Qatar and other countries in the region have seen increased attention from global media houses trying to investigate the region’s football trends, practices and strengths. This trend is expected to improve the game in the region, with teams now having more fans to entertain and please.
This is evident from increased players buying and selling activities in among teams in the region this season. The UAE can use this as motivation to have the media access more information on the game and get more support to reach a bigger audience.
A good example of how significant the media is for football is the level of success English football enjoys. The English league enjoys global audience and attention. The media not only makes a lot of money from the games in the region, but also invests a lot back to ensure the success of the game. The UAE region has both the capacity and means to grow their leagues to a global level (Walker, 2010).
However, the media has to improve its campaigns in selling the games outside the UAE. It is also important to realize that the growth of football in any region is dependent on the country’s media, and its willingness to embrace and market the game. In the recent times, football in small and developing countries continues to acquire a bigger global audience due to the attention the games receive from big media houses.
Many big players owe a big part of the career success to the media fraternity. For any player to succeed, exposure is paramount. Therefore, the role played by the media to grow players cannot be underestimated. Buying and selling players is one of the ways clubs make money.
Identifying young talent and having it sold to the world by the media plays a significant role in keeping the soccer business vibrant. This proves that the media is important in the game of football, and plays a significant role in growing the game, the players, revenues, and any other legally acceptable interest by different stakeholders.
Engaging the stakeholders
The most important stakeholders in the football game are the people of UAE. Different games attract an audience of more than 5 million people each year. The UAE can use the different leagues to market itself as a tourism destination. By so doing, the region would be able to diversify its sources of income and reduce dependence on the petroleum industry.
For visitors who are already loyal to the region, football can be used to make their stay even more entertaining. If such initiatives are taken, the people of UAE are bound to benefit from having a more developed country using increased tourism revenues.
Improving the sporting activity in a region many times means developing and improving the region’s infrastructure, a move that residents and investors would greatly benefit from. The people of UAE should therefore be involved in any decisions made to improve partnership between the game and the media.
Among the most significant stakeholders in developing football should be the business people in the region. Just by hosting the world cup, Qatar’s hotel capacity and revenues is expected to grow by over 30% by the year 2022 (World Football Insider, 2010). Businesses people in the UAE must realize that by supporting the game through the media, it will bring tremendous benefits to them.
Hotel and accommodation industries would be the biggest beneficiaries of improved football activity. When fans have to travel from one emirate to another to watch a game, they need a place to eat, sleep and get entertained.
Investors in the industry should therefore be at the forefront supporting the media. They can do that by supporting promotional programs in partnership with media companies, as well as paying well for adverts during sports programs to improve media revenues.
The government plays the biggest role in encouraging media involvement in games. “The UAE is still heavily criticized for stiffing media freedom” (Greenslade, 2009). Such obstacles need to be minimized to allow the media engage fully in the game and its development. Anytime there is a major football activity in the UAE, the government finances more than half of the preparations.
It also bears the burden of making sure other activities that are lined up to ensure a successful activity are taken care of. Most importantly to note is that the UAE spends billion of shillings every year constructing stadiums and sports infrastructure. Supporting the media can enable them increase revenues, pay more taxes and enable the government to invest more in sports.
The government further plays a significant role in ensuring that other challenges such as laws and regulations are addressed. Promoting the game means that the region benefits for a long time from the investments, rules, regulations and infrastructure put in place.
For example, infrastructure put in place to promote cricket in recent years has seen power supply being boosted and 10,000 more homes near the cricket facilities now being powered in the area due to increased power capacity. Using the media to promote the football game could bring even more and bigger benefits to the region due to the size of infrastructure that needs to be established to promote the game.
Other important stakeholders in promoting a good relationship between media and football are the sponsors and financial partners such as the banks and other external donors (Wenner, 2002). Sponsors exert pressure on the media to deliver since they expect results worth their money. They expect results that are sustainable and with high rates of returns for their investments.
The media meets the sponsors’ expectations by ensuring timely results, high quality work and prompt implementation of objectives. In the process of trying to satisfy investors and sponsors, the media is able to give results that have a long life cycle. Through negotiations and consultations, the media together with investors, who are many times club owners, are able to consult and deliver what is best for the game.
Major media houses in the UAE can be listed as follows:
- Abu Dhabi Media Company
- Dubai Media Inc
- Middle East Broadcasting Center
- CNN international
- BBC World News
- Radio: Arabia Radio Network
The presence of media groups that broadcast globally such as CNN international and BBC World News puts the UAE at an advantage. However, the amount of football coverage in the region can only be improved through proper negotiations and investments. Media freedom and ensuring that these media houses have access to as much information as possible is important to keep the news real.
Conclusion
The game of football in many parts of the world heavily relies on the media to stay alive and exciting. The same case applies to the UAE as a country and all its individual emirates. Teams in all the emirates enjoy a healthy level of support from all the emirates, but still lack the global attention that would sell them internationally.
Being one of the most famous tourist destinations, the region can use this to their advantage to sell their game of football. Exposing their games internationally would make the teams attractive to talented players from all over the world, as well as allow them to sell their players and skills to the most recognized teams in the world.
The media on the other hand heavily relies on sports for revenues. Football in the UAE is a widely watched game and offers an avenue for media companies to grow their revenues as the number of viewers grows.
The internet has made it possible for media houses and other advertising agencies to grow their revenues as a result of increased viewers. The young population has embraced the football game with more enthusiasm and revenues are expected to keep growing.
These realities keep the media and football stakeholders in constant interaction and negotiations with each other. The government intervenes to ensure that none of the groups take advantage of each other. This is through fair play among football teams and regulating the media coverage and marketing charges.
However, it is clear from the discussion that the media plays a significant role in the game of football in the UAE. They do so by marketing the game, acting as the communication channel between stakeholders, and being the source of information for useful trends from other parts of the world. For this reason, a good relationship between the two must be maintained at all costs.
Reference list
Boyle, R. & Richards, H. (2004). Football in the new age. New York: Routledge Publishers.
Boyle, R. & Richard, H. (2009). Power play: Sport, the media and popular culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Central Intelligence Agency. (2011). Middle East: United Arab Emirates. Web.
Greenslade, R. (2009). UAE aims to stifle press freedom. Web.
Jain,M. (2007). Pratiyogita darpan. Agra: State Bank Colony.
Kambitsis, C. et al. (2002). “Sports advertising in print media: The case of 2000 Olympic Games”. Corporate communications: An International Journal, 7(3): 155-161.
Oxford Business Group. (2010). The report: Abu Dhabi 2010. Oxford Business Group.
Seven Media. (2010). UAE Football League: The brief. Web.
Walker, J. (2010). Oman, UAE & Arabian Peninsula. Lonely Planet Publications.
Wenner, L.A. (2002). Media, sports & society. Newbury Park: Sage publications.
World Football Insider. (2010). Qatar 2022 World Cup Bid Reveals New Stadium Plans and Cooling Technologies. Web.