How To Start Football, Soccer Viewing Center In Nigeria..Step By Step Guide

Football is unarguably the most popular sport in Nigeria, and the world, with many persons and organizations tapping into its popularity as well as for its commercial benefits. You can also eat from the football cake by simply starting a viewing center for football matches.

It is common to find at least one football viewing center in the street of a Nigerian city. Even the rural communities are not left out as the viewing center business is also growing in those areas. As a result many individuals have started considering investing in this business venture, however, many such individuals do not have sufficient knowledge about the business.

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This article will try to proffer a solution to the problem of how to start the business. All that is required of you is to continue reading and afterward implement the steps which will be outlined in the article.

Before we go on to see how you can start a football viewing center in Nigeria, let us see a few advantages of running such kind of business.

Advantages of having a football viewing center business

1. It is quite easy to start up. Setting up a football viewing center in Nigeria is quite an easy task. With an average of about N100,000, you can set up your own viewing center. All you just need is a good location, wooden benches, TV sets, a generating set, cable TV with a subscription, and board(s) for displaying the match fixtures and schedules.
2. It is profitable. During on-season periods, it is common for viewing centers to display a minimum of three matches per week. When you consider the number of persons coming to view one match and the price per viewer, you will understand how profitable this business is.

A good example is when you have three matches in a week and 100 viewers per match at N100 per match. Doing the Math will give you a revenue of 3 X 100 X 100 = N30,000 for that week. Multiply this amount by four and you’ll get a peek at what you can be earning every month. Note, however, that while this may be only assumptions, it is not far from reality.

Challenges of starting or running a football viewing center

1. There is competition. Like almost every other lucrative business in Nigeria, football viewing center business involves a lot of competition. So, before you finally decide to start up your own center make sure you do some research and know how you can be able to beat the competition.
2. It is capital intensive. Note that I did not say that starting a football viewing is cheap, rather it is the contrary. From getting a good space to buying television sets and subscribing for cable TV, you will be needing money.

Steps to starting your own football viewing center business

We’ve seen how financially rewarding running a football viewing center can be in Nigeria and the associated challenges; now we are going to consider the steps necessary for starting up the business.

Step 1: Conduct a feasibility study.

Like any reasonable person planning on building a house will first sit down and count the costs, you also need to conduct a feasibility study on the business you are about to venture into. Carrying out a feasibility study on the football viewing center business will help you to know what is expected in the business and what is not. Doing this will give you a proper background understanding of the business, the challenges, and whether you should go ahead with the business idea or not.

The cost breakdown below is a sample of how much it costs to set up a football viewing center. The grand total cost is approximately N500,000.

• Rent for land space – N100,000
• 100 Plastic seats – N1000 each
• 2 Television sets – N50,000 each
• Cable TV (Purchase, Installation, and subscription) – N 100,000
• UPS – N10,000
• Generator set – N40,000
• Standing fans – N20,000
• Noticeboard – N3,000
• Lighting and extension cables

Step 2: Write a business plan

When you have conducted the feasibility study, the next step is for you to write down a good business plan for the business. A good business plan should include your business working model – how you intend to run the business, the objectives of the business, how you will get funds.

Step 3: Find a good space

After getting a solid business plan for the football viewing center business, you should proceed to get a good space for the viewing center. As with most other businesses, the location of your prospective customers will determine the location of your business, which in turn will determine the success of the business.

That being said, when you are searching for a space for your viewing center you need to factor in some things such as the size of the place and the proximity to residential buildings. A good viewing center should be large enough to accommodate a large audience without being stuffy. In addition, your intending space should be located in a secure vicinity as you wouldn’t want your customers to be afraid of their safety when viewing matches.

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Step 4: Equip the center

This step entails furnishing the viewing center with the appropriate materials. Make sure that you take this step seriously as it can help to make you stand out from your competitors in the business. Some of the basic things you will need to start your viewing center include the following:

• Seats: You don’t expect your customers to be standing while watching matches, do you? Hence, you must equip your viewing center with seats. While it is common to use wooden benches due to their durability, you can go the extra mile by investing in high-quality plastic seats to beat the competition.
• Television sets: This is one of the most essential things that you need to get before starting this business. Gone are the days when CRT TVs – those hunchback types – were in vogue, now, you need to get Flat screen televisions like LCDs, LEDs, or Plasma TVs. To start your viewing center business, you will need at least two such TVs, and they need to be large.
• Cable television: Like television sets, decoders with subscriptions are equally important for a football viewing center. There are currently different options for cable TVs these days; you can choose from a wide range that includes Multichoice’s offerings of DSTV or other satellite TVs like MyTV, or the newly launched TSTV. The type of matches you want to show will help you to decide on the type of cable TV and subscription to go with.
• A generating set: We all know how erratic the power supply in Nigeria is, so, it is better to be prepared than to be reactive. Investing in a standby generator for your football viewing center business is a no-brainer as far as doing the business in Nigeria is concerned. If you have the resources, you can get more than one generating set.
• UPS: Along with a generating set, it would also be a great idea to get a UPS or inverter for your viewing center. This is to ensure that the TVs and decoders don’t go off when there is a power interruption.
• Good ventilation system: I mentioned that when selecting your location for the center it needs to be able to house a large audience without making them feel stuffy. Therefore, it is important that you have windows in the center. Getting standing fans or air conditioning systems will not also be a bad idea.
• Noticeboard: The purpose of a board is to serve as a medium of advertising the match fixtures and schedules for a day. This will help to keep the customers informed about the matches to be played.

Step 5: Subscribe to a cable network

After equipping your viewing center and selecting a cable TV, you need to subscribe to an appropriate plan. The type of matches you want to show will determine the type of subscription plan to subscribe to. Some of the major football events are:

• The FIFA World Cup
• The UEFA Champions’ League
• The English Premier League
• The Spanish La Liga
• Italian Serie A
• French Ligue 1
• German Bundesliga

Step 6: Open your viewing center and publicize

When you are done with setting up the center, you can go on to open the doors to the public. It is important to state here that you may not make enough profit during the initial months as you are just starting and there are probably already existing viewing centers around. However, you can gain the trust of your prospective customers by advertising your center and giving out freebies. For this purpose, it is highly advised that you start with a price lower than the average of the competition. After you have gained the trust of your customers, you can then normalize the price.

NOTE: Like every other customer-focused business, you need to make sure that you treat your customers with respect and that they enjoy your services.