Charters and the way forward for the FRU July 17, 2008
The money problems plaguing Fiji Rugby is as old as the wooden walls housing Rugby House in Suva, PIRA marketing and sponsorship director Charlie Charters shares light on the issue.
Fijilive senior reporter Maikeli Seru talks to the former FRU and Pacific Islanders Rugby Alliance marketing and sponsorship director Charters on areas that can be exploited to help the FRU conquer its financial hurdle.
With the oval ball code reaping commercial and financial success worldwide, the Rugby House at Gordon Street in Suva is among the regular faces knocking annually at the coffers of the Fiji government for financial assistance.
Annual government assistance to Fiji rugby is around $2 million dollars apart from International Rugby Board aid.
This is not enough to fare on a level playing field against the big guns of global rugby.
Accompanied by this are the ever changing guards in advertising office at the FRU.
Within the last two decades the position has changed hands between expatriates and locals, but one who was instrumental in setting advertising rules right, was former Fiji television personality and rugby commentator in Charters.
He is back in the country for a short break from his new career as a novelist and immediately shared some light on where Fiji went wrong and what should be done to lure the sponsorship dollars to the game which is fast becoming religion to the people of Fiji.
Fijilive: How hard were your days at the Fiji Rugby Union?
Charters: Very hard. When I started in 2001, it was a couple of months after the General Elections and everybody remembers the coup in 2000. The circumstances were very similar. The business community was very nervous, and it was not a very easy road to travel because sponsorship is what we call discretionary spending where you don’t have to spend on sponsorship. Sponsorship is something that is very good for cultivating a professional image. Unfortunately when the economy was down it was the first area financial controllers like to reduce the budget. It was similar to what the FRU face now. The big difference was in 2001 nobody had really done the marketing of Fiji rugby properly. The big problem in 2001 was that there were a lot of companies that used to give very small amount of money to a national player, give him a t-shirt, make a video of him, or take some pictures, or a poster, pretending to the consumers of Fiji that somehow they are sponsoring the whole of Fiji rugby. That was a big problem and we tried our best over the course of four years to educate the consumers to reject that and to educate companies that if they want an association with Fiji rugby, they had to do it through the front door and not to namu (mosquito) on the back of these small deals. We don’t have the same problems now where companies enjoy pepper corn sponsorship but superficially from the outside, I think sponsors have become wiser.
Fijilive: Were there parasites living on the survival of Fiji rugby?
Charters: There were a lot of companies because Fiji rugby had not historically done a coherent marketing programme and it was easy for these companies to sort of slide down and give $1000-$1500 to a national rep, to do a series of television adverts with an intention to the consumer that they were involved in promoting Fiji rugby when they were really basically stealing the profits. We also had a series of big battles with some big companies to tell them that it was not acceptable. Fiji rugby welcomes support but to be done in a proper way. Now most national reps understand that. They sign contracts showing that they have responsibilities to Fiji rugby sponsors. It is part of the increasing professionalism. These players learn how to conduct themselves to the rest of the world and they are smarter and responsible to Fiji rugby.
Fijilive: Is that why Fiji rugby is still struggling financially?
Charters: The problem Fiji Rugby Union finds itself in almost entirely is the consequence of the coup and the shaky sense the people have on where their business was going, whether it was growing or not. I am sure the FRU is doing its best to find sponsors but some companies will be looking at the amount of money the FRU is asking. There are real economic questions out there. It is very good that Digicel has come in because we had been campaigning for a long time that the government should recognize corporate competitions. We had Vodafone as a sponsor and they were a good company but in terms of the financial investment it was limited because they had no competition in that mobile market. Competition is what really generates the big dollar that the FRU needs and that’s why Air Pacific, Tappoo, Colonial and Bp Oil invest significant amount of money. They are companies that face competition in the domestic market. They want to identify with Fiji rugby because they know that if you want to talk to a banker or an insurance company and if you are associated with Fiji rugby, you are on everybody’s mind. That’s why they invested because it differentiate and make their product stronger against their competitors. The local market is tight and competitive, but people have an appreciation of what rugby sponsors do to help build Fiji rugby. In the sector of the economy where there is good competition Fiji rugby will always find a sponsor and amidst competition the FRU will get more sponsorship.
Fijilive: How difficult was it to sell Fiji rugby?
Charters: One of the big problems when I arrived in 2001 was this expectation that there was going to be a big deal coming from overseas. A lot of that came with the involvement of Sir Michael Faye with Samoa through his relationship with Brian Williams. He fell in love with Samoa rugby and bank rolled its national team. Fiji looked at that with a great deal of jealousy. It got them into thinking that the answer to all the problems lay in securing a big overseas deal. I made it very clear that it would not happen and to this day it had not happen. Fiji did very well at the last Rugby World Cup and if there was going to be a block buster deal it would have already happened. We can sit with our telescope looking over the horizon waiting for this big ship to sail in. I think it is just a wait of time. The people that care the most about rugby in Fiji are the consumers in Fiji and the people Fiji rugby should be looking at, are the people who sell to the consumers in Fiji whether it be a beer company, supermarket, bank, the mobile phone people, oil companies, and manufacturer. Fiji rugby has an incredible product comparable only to cricket in India. It has the ability to talk to the nation with one breath. Fiji is an incredibly diverse country. There are a lot of anger, a lot of tension and a lot of sadness in our history but there is one thing that unite us in one instant and that is that national rugby team. It is incredible that after four coups, after 30 years of ups and downs, name calling, strikes and pay freezes, we still have a product in Fiji rugby which can talk in an instant to the whole country. Television, radio and newspaper can’t do that but Fiji rugby can do it. Maybe somebody is going to drop $10 million dollars on Fiji rugby; I don’t think it is going to happen. The answer to FRU problems is in the economy and hoping that through some skillful marketing, we can begin some process of getting those dollar values to where they should be.
Fijilive: Does the FRU lack a very good marketing and advertising system?
Charters: It is like selling a house. You can put the house on the internet hoping that someone in New Zealand or America is going to buy it. There could be someone overseas who could take the house but how long you are going to wait. Rugby, from a budgeting point of view is what you don’t sell you cannot sell again, because tournaments happen each season. Once it is gone it is gone. If you can’t sell a sponsorship for a Test this year then it cannot be sold again next year. That opportunity, its budget and revenue is gone. The FRU has to start brining in some money and that’s the challenge they got to face. It is a competitive market where everybody wants to take a piece of the pie. Fiji rugby has got to go in there in essence and steam rolls those guys and say, ‘hey look this is the most important thing.’
Fijilive: How can we do it because you were there, somebody has just left, but Fiji rugby is still begging for money?
Charters: They have to find the resource to be able to go out and fashion the sponsorship programmes. The most positive thing is Fiji rugby is still vibrant, very relevant and exciting and still talks to the whole country in one goes. The marketing programme is also intact because the sponsors are happy and they are still supporting Fiji rugby. A lot is positive but the FRU should put good people in place to do a little bit more digging to get proposals in front of the right people.
Fijilive: How much was there when you walked in and how much you left behind?
Charters: Honestly I cannot remember. One of the good things we did was ask for the tax rebate in 2003 which helped a great deal because of its tax efficient way. Rugby changes peoples’ perception and it helped sell products. What the FRU could be thankful of is the competition gained by Digicel who use sport in their smart marketing strategy. They understand how to use sports like they do with cricket in the Caribbean and they are doing it here. The FRU will gain tremendously.
Fijilive: What about the marketability of the Fiji team?
Charters: One of the biggest advantage we have over New Zealand an Australia is that we do not have the competitive situation where each sport targets talented athletes. Their rugby unions spend enormous amount of money on grass roots level to get players playing from schools right to national level. There’s a huge challenge to get people to stay with rugby union but in Fiji we have people who love rugby and think of nothing but rugby. Realistically, rugby union is the only way in Fiji if someone wants to be a professional player. We have more foreign players overseas because they lack the right physical players to play in league. Fiji has a big advantage over that almost for nothing. The provinces keep on producing this well spring of talented athletes which the FRU does not pay for. Development takes care of itself. They get their raw talent a lot cheaper compared to other nations. Australia pays thousands of dollars to groom its national reps whereas the FRU have talents almost falling out of trees. That’s an incredible rich resource where they are not looking for players but vice versa compared to Australia and New Zealand.
Fiijlive: But why aren’t we winning?
Charters: I don’t know and I never get involved in coaching or what happened to Australia A or whether Serevi should be the 7s coach.
Fijilive: Serevi will always be a seller, should he be coach again?
Charters: Serevi is an amazing guy, someone recognizable around the world. The FRU is trying a forward chart because being the defending 7s champion the last thing they want is to go down with a whimper. He is a candidate but the FRU is the best answer.
Fijilive: How can we successfully sell Fiji rugby
Charters: The FRU to be realistic because at the end of the day it is about somebody has money and how to get money from his pocket to your pocket. If you want to scare someone away you will put your price up. I suggest that the FRU cut its cloth according to the market. If they are convinced that there’s a whale of a deal waiting to be landed then keep waiting if not concentrate on the deal that you can get, bring them in and make the sponsors happy. FRU has got a good number of sponsors like Tappoo, Colonial and Air Pacific who has been there for long years and that’s the foundation to commercial success. As down-beat as the economy now there’s nobody that Fiji rugby matters more than the Fiji consumers and there’s nobody who wants the Fiji consumers more than the companies who operate in Fiji. If someone was in love with Fiji after the RWC than that deal would have happened by now. We can wait or otherwise look for sponsors now and move on.
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