eBusiness Weekly
Africa Moyo
The two successive wins by Dynamos over Bulawayo City and Chapungu in the last two games has brought back smiles on its legion of supporters and sponsors.
DeMbare beat both teams by identical 2-1 score lines, to breathe life into the team’s faltering campaign.
Going into the Bulawayo City match last Sunday, Dynamos were anchoring the 18-team Castle Premier Soccer log standings with a paltry three points from seven games.
However, the team now lies on 10th position with nine points, and way clear of the relegation zone.
Dynamos brand was beginning to take a battering particularly after supporters announced that they were going to stay away from the team’s home games until results improved.
Crucially, the entire league was beginning to catch a cold because a poorly performing Dynamos affects attendance at matches, hitting opposition teams hard in the pocket.
Veteran soccer commentator 0 told Business Weekly after the Chapungu game on Wednesday that the turnaround in the team’s fortunes are a boon for both local football and sponsors.
“A breath of fresh air (has been) re-injected into the Premiership because Dynamos are the team everyone wants to beat to be the talk of town,” said Mabika.
A branding strategist Kuziva Murapa of BrandIt (Private) Ltd concurred, saying it makes the league more exciting.
Murapa said the poor performance of Dynamos affects the entire Castle Lager Premiership and even the sponsors.
“The recovery of Dynamos makes the league exciting. Its previous results affected the whole league but good results from the last two games are good for both sponsors and supporters,” said Murapa.
Dynamos, together with two traditionally top teams — Highlanders and Caps United — attract the biggest following in the country and big companies have equally followed the teams and sponsored them.
Highlanders and Dynamos were previously sponsored by BancABC but NetOne has taken over now, taking care of the teams’ salaries and jerseys.
Critically, the overall league sponsors — Delta Corporation through its product Castle — tend to ride on the popularity of Dynamos and Highlanders to record huge sales.
But despite good performances of bitter rivals Highlanders, there is a school of thought that suggests the Castle Lager brand still needs a well performing Dynamos.
Murapa said there is a correlation between good results and the high consumption of a product being sold by a football team sponsor.
“When a team like Dynamos is not doing well, it affects the brand sponsoring it but when it is winning, the brand does well. Therefore, we can say the sales of a company, let’s say of Delta’s Castle Lager, go up when the team is winning and vice versa.
“Someone simply buys Castle because Dynamos is winning while someone says I am reducing my consumption or stop drinking altogether in protest because Dynamos is losing,” said Murapa.
He said this means that soccer players and coaches should be “sensitive” to the implications of their performances on the pitch.
Dynamos is the country’s most successful and popular soccer team with a record 22 league titles and 16 other trophies.
The local has become almost synonymous with the team to the extent that if it is not playing well, there is a crisis across the country.
In 2005, when it stared relegation in the face, even politicians sprang to the team’s defence saying it was not proper to have a league without DeMbare and proposals of increasing the number of teams were toyed with so as to accommodate the team in the event of being relegated.
Dynamos had to survive the dreaded chop on the last day after beating Masvingo United 2-1 at Mucheke Stadium, and in the process denied Masvingo a chance to win the league title that year.
Una-Una, as Masvingo United is popularly known, surrendered the title to Caps United who made light work of Black Rhinos.
