A disappointed parent wrote to the national newspaper, The Straits Times, to highlight that Singapore Airlines sponsored the New Zealand dragon boat team, but not ours.
The young Singaporean dragon boaters recently put together an outstanding performance to win the Junior Dragon Boat Championship in Prague. (Singapore win Junior Dragon Boat Championship)
As you can imagine, the immediate reaction of some Singaporeans is to talk about foreign talents, discrimination, being second class citizens and whatever it is about the Singapore system that they find unfair to them.
However, reality is not so simple.
The decision to sponsor the New Zealand dragon boat team was in all probability a local decision taken in New Zealand by the SIA executives there. Each country manager usually has his own marketing budget and spends the way he sees fit.
Furthermore, sport is a huge part of New Zealand culture and sponsors are usually quick to attach themselves to sports teams and personalities. In Singapore, more people are interested in food than sport.
Also, you seldom hear of SIA sponsoring sports or sponsoring the air tickets of the national teams when they go for trips overseas. In fact, most national and club teams travel by the cheapest available ticket, and that is usually not SIA.
The one sport they sponsor is horse racing in the form of the Singapore Airlines International Cup.
Sure, it is upsetting to think that the ‘national’ airline doesn’t sponsor our athletes. But it is our national airline only in so far as it is a Singaporean company that has done outstandingly well on the global stage, but it didn’t become famous by giving out free tickets to our national athletes.
That’s the reality.
“requiring skill or physical prowess” – does that mean mentally strenuous activities are a sport too? well anyway, mental abilities are a huge part of sport and makes the diff between winning and losing. it is also a criteria used by china to filter its mass of potential olympians – only the mentally quick and strong are picked. we always just take the leftovers from them to represent us and it shows – they fail at the big moments even against lesser opponents.
Hi Les, I’m working on an essay about Commodification in Australian Sport at the moment, and this is a really interesting story!
There are quite a few examples about commercialism and commodification changing sport, a key one is limited overs cricket instead of the traditional 5-day series.
And with regard to the whole money-at-all-costs, this issue together with the GFC might warrant a re-reading of Marx. The man did have some great ideas and pinpointed key flaws in capitalism even if implementation of his principles wasn’t always so successful. It does make us question why we so readily and blindly believe in “free” market principles as the only and best way.
🙂
@renuka: Hi Renuka. What is GFC? If you get a chance to do an essay about Singapore sports, feel free to share it with our readers : )
yes, dragonboating is considered a sport in singapore.
i guess chess can be considered a hobby or an interest? it cant be a sport. sport is defined as “an ATHLETIC activity requiring skill or PHYSICAL PROWESS..”
is dragonboating really considered a sport in singapore?
if so, the government should consider making chess a sport too.
there is more money to make in chess anyway.
@ice – I agree with you. This issue is a storm in a teacup.
Whether SIA would have sponsored if approached is one thing. But the fact remains that the association did not approach SIA themselves. So they cannot turn around and blame SIA for not sponsoring them
I think if SIA was approached, the chances of getting sponsored would have been slim to none.
It’s not a deliberate part of SIA’s marketing plan to sponsor sports in Singapore.
Why? Because SIA does not have a domestic air market, unlike most other countries which depend on the national airline to cover internal routes.
SIA does not depend on the revenue of Singaporeans as a company.
They did not approach SIA. Dragonboat’s fault. End of story. You cannot expect SIA to check up on every sport and every team to see where they are competing. Moreover, it is not unusual to see a company sponsor a team / sport that is outside of its home country
I agree with Kar-Teck – there is no obligation for a local company to sponsor Singapore sports just because of the Singapore connection. The companies will do it when it suits their commercial objectives.
Corporate social responsibility? I think Singapore companies do take that role seriously but in the scheme of things, when you consider the poor, the needy, the sick and the disabled, I think those come first and corporate dollars find their way in that direction more readily. I don’t think sports ranks as a social responsibility.
Perhaps when sport means more than food in Singapore – a shocker when it happens – will sports sponsorship dollars go up accordingly.
We’ll get there, but slowly.
I think in terms of sports sponsorship, it is the local enterprises that have to support the local sports team first before enterprises from other countries can be expected to sponsor.
Some examples mentioned involve the top teams, like Arsenal and their Emirates Stadium. But a few of the local clubs have been supported by the local building society in Britain in the past. The Japanese clubs were also well-backed by the Japanese enterprises.
It may be about business, but one part of business is corporate social responsibility. Sponsoring a sports team, especially one that contain a lot of local youth (rather than a full team of FT) is one way of doing CSR.
Hi Les
Just thought you should know that SIA is majority-owned (54% in fact) by Temasek Holdings – http://www.temasekholdings.com.sg/our_portfolio_portfolio_highlights_major_investments.htm
So it should come as no surprise that they support foreigners instead of locals – just look at who the PM’s wife chose to be CEO of Temasek
Of course, he then rejected us for greener pastures, for reasons that are of no strategic purpose to know about – this is how we favour foreigners and that is how they treat us in return…something seems amiss, no?
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get out of your elite uncaring face and go serve my National Service and try my best not to die, like the 7 people who passed away in the first 7 months of the year
Aiyah. Linking this to Temasek and Ho Ching is a bit of a stretch, leh. So next thing, someone is going to say this whole thing is MM Lee’s fault, lah?
Money makes the world go round
Actually, I don’t believe in the notion that your national carrier have the obligation to “support” that country’s sports team. SIA is a fully listed company whose ultimate goal is to make profits on behalf of its shareholders. This is on the charter. To provide support of Singapore sports is not. If a sponsorship of a foreign team is commercially viable, why should SIA not take it up?
Also, who ever said that we should “support” SIA? In this day and age, competition is fierce for many airline routes. I don’t see why a Singaporean have to fly SQ just because SQ is from Singapore.
It is about economics not about patriotism.
@passer-by: It isn’t fair to say that Singaporeans “don’t support our own national airline” unless there is no price differentiation between the different airlines. There is no reason why the national airline should give “cheaper tickets” to Singaporeans either.
I was recently stranded in India and desperately needed to get home on the national airline – I was 6th on the wait list behind Indians nationals and there was nothing the airline could do about it – no priority even though I’m a Singaporean. Its just business.
Same rationale as to why the SIA NZ office decided to support the Kiwis dragon boaters. Its business, nothing personal. Just as why the Emirates Stadium is in London instead of the UAE – and I didn’t see/hear the Arabians crying foul like we currently are.
Interestingly, I know of many civil servants who don’t fly SIA when they travel overseas for official duties. Many people in the various ministries or government agencies always fly the cheaper alternatives, and fly on SIA only when there is no other choice. It’s quite ironic that we don’t support our own national airline.. and our national airline doesn’t support us..
maybe commercialism has gotten into the way of national pride…