Johannesburg - The 2022 edition of the Soweto Marathon looms large and while the main discussion has been about the snail-pace rate at which runners are registering, the bigger concern is that ‘The People’s Race’ is still without a headline sponsor since Old Mutual pulled out of backing running in 2019.
To the uninitiated, the Soweto Marathon is not just a 42.2km run (there’s also the half marathon and 10km races) but rather a trip down memory lane through the history of South Africa’s battle against apartheid.
The landmarks that form part of the full marathon are such that you’d expect corporations to be rushing to associate with the event.
Nowhere in the world does a race go past the homes of Nobel Peace Laureates. Runners also get to run past houses that the late former South African president Nelson Mandela and the dearly departed Archbishop Desmond Tutu used to call home.
As if that was not enough, the venue where the ANC’s Freedom Charter was drawn up (Kliptown) forms part of the route. The same applies for that great school, Morris Isaacson Secondary, which was influential in the 1976 student uprisings. Need I mention that the Hector Memorial Museum will be on sight during the race?
Strange then that the race organisers are struggling to sell this amazing history and heritage to sponsors, won’t you say?
Central Gauteng Athletics (CGA) president Steven Khanyile says they are on the verge of securing a sponsor for the race but that will only happen next year. He reasons that the problem has been created by the Covid-19 pandemic and that they had been in talks with potential backers since.
The argument here will be that both Two Oceans Marathon and Comrades Marathon were similarly impacted but they still got backing for this year’s races after Old Mutual’s withdrawal – the 56km Cape Town ultra getting Totalsports on board while Comrades secured Mr Price during the pandemic.
So why then is the Soweto Marathon not getting sponsors?
Khanyile says that institutions they’ve spoken to showed interest only to back out at the last minute. The man who also sits on the Soweto Marathon Board of Trustees believes it is only a matter of time before corporations come rushing to be associated with the race.
The reality of South Africa is that nearly three decades since the advent of democracy, the financial muscle remains with whites who will drag their feet to back any event that is predominantly black.
Smaller races run by white clubs and raced in the suburbs are awash with sponsorships while township races continue to suffer.
But perhaps more saddening is the fact that those well-to-do black people from Soweto themselves don’t seem to see value in investing in the race.
My challenge though is to the Soweto Trust to get off their butts and be creative about marketing the race. I hear they have hired a ‘white’ company to help them do so. As if there are no black Sowetans who could do that. Then again would ‘lily-white’ corporate South Africa open their doors for those darkies?
This, however, we shall tackle in a future column.
A little birdie told me the Soweto Marathon might not be televised on SuperSport despite Athletics South Africa (ASA) having signed a contract with the pay-channel, and that the Trust has approached the SABC. Of course the Soweto Marathon should be televised on SABC, but it would be a travesty if the race was not part of the ASA/ SuperSport deal.