Hospitality comes at a price for suiteholders
28 June 2009, 12:03
By Fiona Forde
Corporate South Africa have been kicked out of their suites at Ellis Park for Sunday night's Confederations Cup final and forced to buy back their seats for 90 times the price of a regular stand ticket.
They also have to pay in US dollars, the official Fifa currency, with each corporate ticket costing $800 (R6 400), compared to R70 for a stand ticket.
According to Match Hospitality, the ticketing agents for corporate hospitality at Fifa's events this year and in 2010, all of Sunday's corporate seats have been sold and will rake in more than $3.5 million.
How much of that money will stay in South Africa is unclear.
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Corporate South Africa have been kicked out of their suites at Ellis Park for Sunday night's Confederations Cup final and forced to buy back their seats for 90 times the price of a regular stand ticket.
They also have to pay in US dollars, the official Fifa currency, with each corporate ticket costing $800 (R6 400), compared to R70 for a stand ticket.
According to Match Hospitality, the ticketing agents for corporate hospitality at Fifa's events this year and in 2010, all of Sunday's corporate seats have been sold and will rake in more than $3.5 million.
How much of that money will stay in South Africa is unclear.
"That's confidential," said Peter Csanadi, the head of marketing at Match Hospitality, an international company that was selected as the preferred bidder for corporate hospitality for the Confederations Cup and World Cup in an international public tender launched in 2007.
Match Hospitality was not obliged to twin with a local partner or entity and does not have any South Africans on its board, though it was obliged to enter into a 50:50 profit share with Fifa.
Csanadi also declined to confirm whether or not the ticket revenue is banked in South Africa.
There are 330 corporate suites at Ellis Park. However, only 204 of them, with an overall seating capacity of 4 500, went on sale for the fortnight-long event. The rest were not fit to be marketed, according to Csanadi, who says that all of them will be renovated for use for 2010.
However, the substandard suites were not returned to the companies who pay for them all-year round to use for the Confederations Cup but sat vacant instead.
Generally the corporate uptake throughout the tournament has been embarrassingly low, with the so-called "ring of shame" looking bare at Ellis Park and the other three stadiums at Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Rustenburg for most of the games.
"It's a sign of the times," said Danny Jordaan, the CEO of the local organising committee, on the morning after the opening game when the corporate tier looked all but empty.
"The Confederations Cup is not that well known," Csanadi added.
But why didn't Match Hospitality reduce the prices in order to fill them?
"That's not part of the agreement," Csanadi explained.
Under the Fifa agreement, suite owners at Ellis Park were obliged to forfeit their leasing rights.
They were contacted in May, asking them to vacate the suites by early June and remove all furniture, liquor and branding, at their own expense, and with the understanding that if they chose to buy suite tickets for the games this month, they were not guaranteed their own suites back.
"We realise that it is difficult to move on such short notice and apologise in advance for any inconvenience caused," the email from Ellis Park read.
"However, your assistance in making this event a success will be much appreciated."
Though many members of the corporate world felt aggrieved by the move - the first time a sporting event has forced them to sacrifice their seats - there was little they could do about it as this forms part of Fifa's overall agreement entered into with South Africa some years ago.
That same agreement will apply to all 10 host stadiums of next year's World Cup when the corporate tickets will fetch even bigger bucks, with packages ranging from $1.5m down to single corporate seats costing $2 010 for the opening match.
- This article was originally published on page 1 of The Sunday Independent on June 28, 2009
Johannesburg
