This year, sport expects to receive P160 million, a similar amount that the sport's mother body, the Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC), got in 2024. The budget, which has been around P100 million per year since 2018, only registering a significant increase during 2024 due to preparations for the Olympic Games held in Paris, France. At the moment, sport lives on hand to mouth with very little leg room to manoeuvre. As a result, some sport codes are forced to abandon international trips, or cut back on their activities. The total sum of all this is that sport development suffers. Finance is central to the growth of sport and lack of proper funding is, therefore, retrogressive. Now that the government 'cake' keeps shrinking or is static, there is a need for the various sport disciplines to work on widening their revenue streams.
Some like football receive generous sponsorship from the corporate world, but still, that has proved insufficient. It is clear that the government grant is not enough to feed all sport codes, which calls for aggressive marketing and thinking to add new funding avenues. The story has probably remained the same for ages, with the more than 40 BNSC codes scouring more or less the same market to augment the government subvention. They literally knock at the same door and its now too predictable where they will go. If it’s not FNB, it’s Mascom, DTCB or Orange.
The path to these offices is now worn out as the circle is not as big as in countries like South Africa. Again, most of the companies operating in Botswana are headquartered abroad, which further complicates the search for additional cash. It leaves most of the codes feeling hapless, with some resigned to accepting as little as P50, 000 from the BNSC as their budget for the whole year. But still the administrators should not feel discouraged, instead they have a duty to keep going even in the face of adversity. Surprisingly, the same administrators have tons of energy to fight each other, but they grow cold feet when it’s time to go out and hunt for partnerships. Making sport attractive is one major getaway to opening endless revenue streams. Once the sport attracts the public, it is easy for partners to come on board. That is why popular codes like football always have someone at the doorstep ready to splash the cash, despite glaring maladministration. Those elected to lead respective codes must normalise producing their 'Moses and the Red sea' moment, where they create a financial path where none seemingly exists.
