From a sports fan’s point of view, football teams or sport clubs business make enormous profits from selling ticket seats in a stadium seen in television, logos of brands and advertisements around the field, or logos of brands on each player’s shirt along with cut-outs and billboards across a road in each province. Plus ongoing news that capital groups, business groups, and even politicians are battling for main sponsors of any newly emerged football clubs. Contrary to what we see on mainstream media, evidence reveals that profits made from these sports world are not money…

Thai football fever ‘The admiring numbers’

The main turning point of Thai football business was in 2009. The Football Association of Thailand Under The Patronage of His Majesty the King (F.A.T.) had worked according to AFC or Asian Football Confederation in order for an aim of professionalism and a growth of Asian football as equivalent to those of European’s. There is an announcement of regulations for every football club to register a legal corporate or establish as a company. This results in capitals gathered by each football club in order to reach the goal of professionalism for its team. ‘Capital’ is a major factor for each team to create a sustainable environment and development. Capitals are used for buying skillful foreign football players, hiring foreign coaches, providing sport scientists to take care of the players, and other public relation activities. Therefore, various football teams had been forced to shut down or change their teams’ names or even change their teams’ executives to follow the objective of being a professional football team.

Football has always been perceived as a number-one sport in Thailand. That makes creating the image by using a marketing strategy in the football business is often found unrealistic. To clarify this; the marketing strategy used in the football business such as presenting news of high price football players, presenting news of an investment by a football club’s chairman which always relates to politics, and creating a dream for Thai fans that their beloved national football team will one day be a part of the World Cup.

Moreover, sports media are presenting statistics and incomes of each football club that can lead to a perception that Thai football business is doing well. The statistic mentioned here, for example, is the number of Thai football spectator throughout the whole season, especially the premier league’s that seems to increase from around 984,000 spectators in 2009 to 1,911,277 in 2014. This means the amount of spectator per match in 2009 was 4,100 while it was 5,029 in 2014. Another example of statistic is an income from souvenir sales. A souvenir sale of every club in 2009 was about 24 million baht which has been increased to 73,054,343 baht in 2014. In addition to this, an income from ticket sales of every club in 2009 was about 50 million baht while in 2014 the incomes have reached up to 164,542,593 baht.

The unrealistic marketing factor and sets of beautiful income numbers of this football industry can lead Thai football fever into a soap-bubble condition waiting to explode.

The other side of the coin ‘the overlooked number’

It is not too exaggerated to say that the strategy used to create ‘the image’ and the unrealistic marketing plan of the football teams have shadowed most profits of each team. Department of Business Development has compared data in sports activities section business in which these corporations of football clubs have been categorized in 2013 in which there were 171 corporations that handed their financial budget report to the Department of Business Development.

(Remark: In this report, the information from year 2013 is a fundamental data for comparison since 2013 is the year the financial budget reports submission was highest. In 2012, there were only 10 companies submitted their financial budget reports and in 2014 there were only 12 companies. Data retrieved on April 2, 2015)

Overall view of football clubs industry in 2013 and 171 corporations that handed in their financial budget reports can be divided into three categories; small business: 135 companies (market share is at 42.55%), medium business; 14 companies (market share is at 12.76%), and large business; 22 companies (market share is at 44.69%).

Moreover, the Department of Business Development has made a ranking of sports business groups and it was ranked at number 69 in 2013. In making net profits, there were only top ten ranks and only 5 football teams that were in the first ten ranks. On the other hand, the top ten most profits loss sports clubs in 2013 were 9 football clubs out of 10. 

A chart indicating top 10 most profitable sport clubs in 2013

A chart indicating top 10 most loss-making sport clubs in 2013

Source: Department of Business Development

Though sports mass media have shown numbers of incomes of various big football clubs exceeding 100 million baht, a real situation has revealed that only a few football teams that make profits and those profits were not even motivating in business. The data from the Department of Business Development indicates that among companies in top 10 profits making, there were only 3 football teams; BEC Tero Sasana Football Club, Suphanburi Football Club, and Army United Football Club.

A chart comparing incomes and net profits of 10 football clubs with highest revenue in 2013

Source: Department of Business Development

From this data, we can see that Thai football industry has been trying to create the professional image in business. However, truth be told that there are a few teams that has a close relationship with the government such as Army United Football Club (Army United Co., Ltd.) that has 5,178,094.44 profits in 2013. Overall looking tells us that either, small, medium, or large teams all struggle with their profits loss, capitalists change, and teams’ executives change in every year. Therefore, a question needed to be asked is why big corporations that run other type of business apart from sports are willing to lose their profits in the football industry every year?

The truth about Thai football: business is not a main priority

An estimated numbers of fans from Thailand premier league fan page in 2014 shows that there are around 3 million fans but when compares the numbers of fans on the page with the numbers of viewers on the stadium, difference occurs. The numbers in the stadium is around 1,911,277. This means there are not all football fans that are willing to pay for their favorite teams.

Yanyong Akrajindanon – Director of Thammasat University Sports Complex shares experiences from his association with Thai football industry. He says that Thai football industry is based on three main factors which are business, politics, and personal liking. However, the most two important factors to him are politics and personal liking.

From the sports business’ perspective, football team is not a massive profits making business. In contrast to that both small and large teams are founded in the same condition of “sustainable,” hence ach team is capable of support themselves for a year only. Football teams can stay because of the works of their players. If a team wants skilled players and quality of the team, the team will need the budget not less than 100 million baht per year. If football teams rely only on incomes from souvenir sales or ticket sales (which are all sold out in every match), they would not be able to afford their bills. Specifically for small teams that aim to create recognized works will inevitably run towards sponsors such as politicians or business groups for their sustainability of their teams.

Becoming the main sponsors for provincial football teams sometimes happens for a reason such as those owners of some business that wish to expand their production base have conflicts with local people. Supporting local football teams then, seems to be a good solution to reduce any objections and also helps create a good image for the corporations in the locals’ eyes.

A source from central regional football industry reveals that whenever there is an emergence of a large project in the local area with all that warranty of safety in every process, there are still protests from the locals. Doing public hearing then, seems to be a difficult task. Supporting the provincial football teams is one way out for corporations of those large projects to create good feeling toward local people, hoping that each public hearing will be accepted by the locals.

“Since football is one of a few activities that people in each province can associate with. Being main sponsors for the local football teams creates love from the locals towards the sponsors; hence an easy way out for each public hearing issued a factory construction project. Normally the public hearing for a factory’s construction is hard to be admitted by the locals since the factory is usually the cause of pollution. However, if the locals love their sponsors, they will accept it.” says the source.

Tool to build power, network and base voters

Democracy needed election and in order to win an election, base voters are needed. As a result to the coup on September 19, 2006, several key politicians had to end their political role. They then turned into football club investor. The most prominent example is Newin Chidchob who turned to football business by buying stocks of Thai Premiere League in 2009. He also invested in Provincial Electricity Authority Football Club and changed the executive team along with coaches. It was renamed as ‘Buriram PEA team’ and became a leading team competing in a leading division in a short period of time.

Saichol Panyachit, an independent scholar, explained the phenomenon of politician role in Thai football industry in his study ‘Thai Football, Power, Politics and Masculinity’. It was stated that politician became key supporter of football clubs after their role in politics came to an end due to the announcement of constitutional court in 2550 after the coup on September 19, 2549. Three more parties during the time of PM Samak Sunthoravej was a contributing factor for these politicians to engage in activities to connect with others, society and mass media lawfully.

Changing football fans to base voters is one of the approaches done by politician, especially, in the local level. They usually do this by becoming a main supporter or found a local football team. The latter method is quite popular because there is a budget allocated for sport events in the community.

Becoming a main support of the team is effective for politicians and if it is a big team with good performance, they would already have a large fan base. The capitalist would then volunteer to become supporter because they want to promote their brand among the fans. Not only the fan will be aware of the brand, it is a great way to build a positive image for their company.

On the other hand, for the small teams, they have to seek for volunteer or supporter among businessman. They have to negotiate or offer to present their logos in certain area. They have to propose the place for presentation and amount of spectators who will notice the brand.

What football teams in return for the sponsorship of the businessmen are usually lies in the future. If in the future, if the head of the club is appointed to any important position, these sponsors would be their first priority to cooperate or benefit from the government project.

Nattakorn Wititanon, a well know scholar who continuously studies about Thai football, has stated in his work ‘Politics and Thai Football’ in the book called ‘Thai Football : History, Power, Politics and Masculinity’ that Thailand is among a very few countries in the world where football clubs are monopolized by politician in different contexts from other countries. Thai football is run as a business and often used by politicians to gain personal popularity before they involve in politics or to maintain their roles. Meanwhile, government power also supports the management of football club. All successful clubs are from the support from the government. To run the team without any political power would be a difficult task because they are closely related inevitably. Therefore, football and politics are inseparable.

From the study by Nattakorn about the connectivity of Thai Premiere League Season 2015 football team with politics (political party, government enterprise and government service, he found that there were 13 teams out of 18 teams linked to politics; 3 teams with Phumjai Thai Party (Chainat  Hornbill, Buriram United and Ratchaburi Mitr Phol), 2 teams with Chat Thai Pattana Party (Suphanburi FC and Saraburi Gulf FC), 1 team with Democrat Party (Port F.C.) 1 team with Chat Pattana Party (Nakhonratchasima Mazda FC) 1 team with Palang Chon Party (Chonburi FC) 1 team with Phue Thai Party (Chiang Rai United) 2 teams with public enterprise (TOT FC and Port F.C.) and 2 teams with government service (Army United and Ratchanawi FC)

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