Durban’s Olympic Dream

Will the Olympic flame be burning at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in 2020? Alan Cooper asks the question.

Durban residents who remember the enthusiastic, but short-lived campaign to bring the summer games to Durban back in the 1980s may be excused for being a little cynical. But there are plenty of reasons to believe that the city’s got a real chance this time round.

So much so, in fact, that with all the Olympics movers and shakers due in the city in July for the International Olympic Committee General Assembly’s congress, and South Africa  gearing up to announce its bid  city for the 2020 games shortly thereafter, the smart money’s on Durban, not just to win the local nomination but to scoop the main prize.

It’s a stunning turnaround for a city whose citizens have always considered it a bit of an underdog and become accustomed to playing second fiddle to Cape Town in international tourism and Johannesburg in business.

But if Durban does clinch the bid, it won’t be because it stumbled into pole position through blind luck. Any good fortune that’s come Durban’s way has been strictly of the Gary Player, “the harder I work the luckier I get,” variety.

For close on a decade, a team of city officials and politicians have been quietly manoeuvring Durban into exactly the position it now enjoys on the world sporting stage.

How Durban is taking the initiative and preparing for the ‘2020 question’.

Consider these comments from influential UK-based sports writer, David Owen, who was in Durban last year for the soccer World Cup: “I think I have seen Africa’s first Olympic city…it is not Johannesburg, which besides overcoming the daunting logistical challenges we all know about, would have to persuade the IOC that its relatively high altitude would not unacceptably inconvenience the athletes. Nor is it picturesque Cape Town, which mounted an unsuccessful challenge for the 2004 Games. It is Durban.”

In an article published in Business Day, Owen spells out why he’s putting his money on Durban.

The Olympics, “is a daunting proposition. Unlike World Cups, responsibility falls squarely on a single city. And, whereas the FIFA World Cup schedules at most four matches in a single day, the Olympic Games can have a dozen, maybe 15 sports taking place simultaneously. The Games, moreover, are literally global, including competitors from more than 200 countries.”

Owen points out that staging a successful Olympics requires discipline, top-notch organisational skills and the best technology. “Aspirant hosts also need to acquaint themselves with a litany of quirkier, more Olympic-specific preferences and values. These tend to shift with the times. At the moment, they include strong ‘green’ credentials, first-rate amenities for the disabled, an aversion to ‘white elephants’ (venues with no hope of ever paying for themselves) and compactness – the location of as many venues as possible in as small an area as possible.”

Some may question whether the multi-billion-rand Moses Mabhida Stadium escapes the white elephant tag. It’s nowhere near self funding, but at least its shops, restaurants and  Sky Car (and now a smashing new Classic Virgin Active gym) mean it’s vibey and buzzing between sports events. There’s no disputing the stadium’s iconic status, though. If the games were to go to the city with the best looking stadium, Durban would win hands down.

But looks aren’t Mabhida’s only assets. Football fans may have complained about the wider-than-usual gap between the front row of seats and the pitch. But, as it turns out, it’s just the right size to accommodate an Olympics-standard athletics track. The stadium can also be expanded to an 80 000-seater, an Olympic requirement.

Then there was Durban’s commitment to a carbon-neutral World Cup. Dismissed as greenwash by critics at the time, it now makes a lot of sense when weighed up against the Olympics shopping list referred to by Owen.

Compactness requirement

As for the “compactness” requirement, most cities would be hard pressed to match the package of the Kings Park sports precinct, complete with Olympic-sized swimming pool (which would need to be rebuilt), and proximity to Kingsmead Cricket Stadium, plus archery, golf, road running, cycling, athletics and other facilities. Which is not to deny that hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, would still have to be spent on preparing the city for the games.

Of course, as any marketer will tell you, it’s no good having the best product on earth if you can’t put it in front of its target market. And it’s in this respect that Durban may have pulled off its biggest coup in edging out Hong Kong to win the race to host the upcoming IOC General Assembly congress.

It’s at this gathering that the city to host the 2018 Winter Olympics will be announced and thousands of sporting and political heavyweights, accompanied by a major international media contingent, will descend on Durban, giving the city exposure to more than a billion TV viewers.

City Manager Michael Sutcliffe said hosting the congress, “is a major achievement in its own right, because it will be the first time ever that the IOC will have a session in Africa. We could well have the heads of state of Germany, France and South Korea visiting our city during the event as they bid for the right to host the winter games. I believe about 3 000 delegates are likely to attend the session.”

Lynette Ntuli, who heads the investment promotion initiative, Durban Invest, concurred: “The IOC session will be a wonderful opportunity for Durban to present itself to the international sports fraternity and the IOC as a sports, meeting and business-friendly destination.”

Turning to the role of business and the benefits of Durban winning the right to host the games, Ntuli said, “There is a huge opportunity for business to contribute to the narrative that will motivate Durban’s chances to bid for the Games.

“The hosting of a mega event like the Olympics is not only about the showcase itself and the immense development of infrastructure, sports programmes and the like leading up to the event, but it is also about the opportunity to profile the lifestyle and vibrancy of the city and its business activities and priority sectors.
“We have seen entire cities, such as Barcelona, Sydney, Atlanta and Vancouver, being re-branded or creating commercial developments and opportunities out of the Games,” Ntuli said.

Commenting on perceptions that business had not benefited nearly as much as expected from the World Cup, she said, “The World Cup was a symbolic national extravaganza, and run by a single organisation for a single code of sport. Certainly, a number of businesses and industries benefited, but perhaps not to the extent we all anticipated.”

To prevent the same thing happening with the Olympics, she said Durban’s business community needed to begin positioning itself now, “not a year or two before the delivery of the event. We should start asking the questions about why we want to participate, how we can participate, how we will contribute to economic growth and the legacy business can leave now.”

Sponsorship

She said that if the most recent, London 2012 Games model was used, the costs of bidding and staging the Games would be funded largely by the private sector through a combination of sponsorship, merchandising, ticketing and TV broadcasting rights.

“Business therefore has a significant role to play in support both as ambassadors and financially. Let’s start telling the story of Durban, getting involving in creating the destination we want it to be, acting as ambassadors through our businesses and networks both at home and abroad.”

Ntuli added that her organisation would host a series of workshops for businesses and other stakeholders to talk about the challenges and opportunities offered.

All this presumes Durban will be chosen as the official South African host city, but the signs are encouraging. The country’s Olympic governing body, SASCOC, said last September it had invited four cities to apply for the hosting rights – Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg – and that Durban had been the only one to submit a bid.

“The bidding process is now finalised as far as SASCOC are concerned and the decision on whether a formal bid will be submitted to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for consideration now rests with the national government,” SASCOC said.

Since then, however, there have been reports of Cape Town and Johannesburg wanting to re-enter the race.
The national government is staying mum on the subject, but extensive behind-the-scenes investigations and feasibility studies are under way ahead of the July IOC congress. After that session, the IOC will send out a formal invitation for countries to submit bids for the 2020 games.

It’s a sure bet that that the government will have already made its choice by the time of the IOC congress. After all, having so many Olympic heavyweights in one place is too good a marketing opportunity to pass up.

And as one senior sports ministry source said, “If they’re all going to be in Durban in July, when the city’s at its best, what would be the point of trying to sell them on Jo’burg or Cape Town?”

Copy by Alan Cooper: This article first appeared in Business in Durban magazine.