Ashesi University College Improving the Football Industry in Ghana through Franchising, Licensing and Merchandising: A Focus on Domestic Football Teams. By Gilbert Tackie Undergraduate thesis submitted to the Department of Business Administration, Ashesi University College. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration Supervised by: Dr. Stephen Emmanuel Armah April 2018 IMPROVING THE FOOTBALL INDUSTRY IN GHANA THROUGH FRANCHISING, LICENSING AND MERCHANDISING i Declaration I hereby declare that this undergraduate thesis is my original work and that no part of it has been presented for another degree in this university or elsewhere. Candidate’s Signature: _______________________________ Candidate’s Name: Gilbert Tackie Student Date: 18/04/2018 I hereby declare that the preparation and presentation of this undergraduate thesis was supervised in accordance with the guidelines on supervision of theses established by Ashesi University College Supervisor’s Signature: _________________________________ Supervisor’s Name: Dr. Stephen Emmanuel Armah Date: 18/04/2018 IMPROVING THE FOOTBALL INDUSTRY IN GHANA THROUGH FRANCHISING, LICENSING AND MERCHANDISING ii Acknowledgement I would like to thank Almighty God for giving me life and grace to successfully undertake this study. Also a big thank you to my supervisor Dr. Stephen Armah, your guidance and dedication was instrumental to my completion of this study. To my parents who have been the financiers of all activities during the course of this undergraduate thesis, I want to say thank you and God bless you. I would also like to thank you to Mr. Oti Adjei of the TV3 network for introducing to several team directors and football executives who helped me in undertaking this study. To all the football team’s representatives and random individuals who contributed to my thesis, God richly bless you. Finally, I am grateful for the encouragement and support all my friends showed me in the course of my work. IMPROVING THE FOOTBALL INDUSTRY IN GHANA THROUGH FRANCHISING, LICENSING AND MERCHANDISING iii ABSTRACT Football as a sporting discipline has a large fan following in Ghana. However, Ghanaians patronize European Leagues more than the Ghana Premier League. This phenomenon has given rise to problems like low stadia attendances and high levels of player migration. In defining the sports industry and identifying its primary stakeholders, this study describes the nature of local football landscape. It hints at the drawbacks and flaws that have arisen due to current industry structures and management practices of domestic clubs. Franchising, licensing and merchandising are concepts that have become a fabric of sports innovations. Some benefits of their successful implementation include the increased avenues for capital acquisition and augmented brand enhancement campaigns. By acquiring qualitative data from 3 Accra based teams, this study identifies their current management practices and gauges the place for franchising, licensing and merchandizing in their operations. Also, qualitative data is gathered from 201 respondents with interest football. This data is analyzed to ascertain demographics domestic clubs can target in their merchandizing schemes and suggest viable avenues of commerce. Ultimately, this study proposes ideals local football teams can adopt to improve capital acquisition and augment their brand enhancement campaigns. Correspondingly, the study identifies mediums of commerce and advertising local football teams can utilize in merchandising. Lastly, the role of the media and the GFA in the successful application of suggested tools is discussed in this study. Key words: football, franchising, licensing, merchandising, commodification, media, football club, Ghana premiere league IMPROVING THE FOOTBALL INDUSTRY IN GHANA THROUGH FRANCHISING, LICENSING AND MERCHANDISING iv Table of Contents Declaration ....................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgement ............................................................................................................ ii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... iii Definition of terms and abbreviations. ............................................................................ vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1 1.1 Overview and background ....................................................................................... 1 1.1.1 Defining the sports industry .............................................................................. 1 1.1.2 The sports value chain ....................................................................................... 2 1.1.3 Hierarchy of the governance in the sport industry .............................................. 4 1.2 The sports industry in Ghana .................................................................................. 7 1.2.1 Public administrative structure of sports in Ghana ............................................. 7 1.2.1 Private Sector Involvement................................................................................ 9 1.3 Problem description .............................................................................................. 10 1.3.1 Stating the problem ......................................................................................... 10 1.3.2 Establishing the failures of current structures of football .................................. 11 1.4 Using franchising, licensing and merchandising ...................................................... 13 1.4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 13 1.4.2 Application of franchising: RB Leipzig ............................................................ 14 1.4.3 Application of licensing: Futbol Club (FC) Barcelona ....................................... 15 1.4.4 Application of merchandising: Real Madrid ..................................................... 16 1.4 Research question ................................................................................................. 17 1.5 Research objectives ............................................................................................... 17 1.6 Research relevance ................................................................................................ 18 1.7 Conceptual framework .......................................................................................... 19 1.8 Organization of the study ...................................................................................... 20 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................. 22 2.1 Introduction to literature on franchising, merchandising and licensing ................... 22 2.2 The role of franchising, licensing and merchandising in football .............................. 23 2.2.1 The relationship between sports innovation and franchising or licensing ........... 23 2.2.2 Franchising as a system for running a football club .......................................... 24 2.2.3 Licensing as a guard to the use intellectual property in sport ............................ 26 2.2.3 Merchandizing as a key value capturing tool in football .................................... 26 IMPROVING THE FOOTBALL INDUSTRY IN GHANA THROUGH FRANCHISING, LICENSING AND MERCHANDISING v 2.3 Discussion of different arrangements on sports administration in global contests ..... 27 2.3.1. A focus on franchising and licensing in the international context ...................... 27 2.4 Role of private and public sectors in the football ..................................................... 28 2.5 Peripherals of franchising, licensing and merchandising ......................................... 29 2.6 Conclusion: The identified gap............................................................................... 30 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................... 32 3.1 Overview of methodology ...................................................................................... 32 3.2 Research Design .................................................................................................... 33 3.3 Research Scope ..................................................................................................... 34 3.3.1 Study Population............................................................................................. 34 3.3.2 Study Area...................................................................................................... 35 3.4 Sampling Strategy ................................................................................................. 35 3.4.1 Sampling techniques ....................................................................................... 35 3.4.2 Sample sizes .................................................................................................... 35 3.5 Data Collection ..................................................................................................... 37 3.5.1 Data preparation, collation and processing....................................................... 37 3.6 Validity and Reliability .........................................................................................