WHILE cricket's Proteas, local football and the Two Oceans suffered declining TV audiences on SABC in the past year, the Comrades Marathon bucked the trend with 9% growth.
Comrades general manager Chris Bruwer told delegates at the Sport Industry Summit in Johannesburg yesterday that the organisation had acted after also experiencing negative ratings in previous years.
After engaging the broadcaster and sponsors, they improved the quality of the 13-hour live crossing to up their average viewership to 1.39 million.
"It was the only sport on SABC that grew," Bruwer said.
The Proteas' viewership had dropped 16%, domestic soccer had declined by 6% and the Two Oceans by 18%.
One of the summit's main discussion points was fan engagement, a topic of particular relevance in South Africa where the main three codes of soccer, rugby and cricket are suffering declining ticket sales.
Frank Supovitz, who until recently was involved in the National Football League in the US, spoke about innovations around American football's Super Bowl and growing engagement between fans and sponsors.
"Without it, I don't think it [the Super Bowl] would have reached the same level of dominance," he told Sowetan in an interview.
Supovitz said the Super Bowl was the single biggest sports event in the world, possibly even larger than the Fifa World Cup final.
"Ten years ago the local organising committee would pay 12million to 14-million [dollars] to host the Super Bowl. Now it's about 40million to 50million."
The experience included the flighting of new TV adverts, as well as the halftime concert.