Improving the Football Industry in Ghana through Franchising, Licensing and Merchandising: A Focus on Domestic Football Teams.

ABSTRACT Football as a sporting discipline has a large fan following in Ghana. However, Ghanaians patronize European Leagues more than the Ghana Premier League. This phenomenon has given rise to problems like low stadia attendances and high levels of player migration. In defining the sports industry and identifying its primary stakeholders, this study describes the nature of local football landscape. It hints at the drawbacks and flaws that have arisen due to current industry structures and management practices of domestic clubs. Franchising, licensing and merchandising are concepts that have become a fabric of sports innovations. Some benefits of their successful implementation include the increased avenues for capital acquisition and augmented brand enhancement campaigns. By acquiring qualitative data from 3 Accra based teams, this study identifies their current management practices and gauges the place for franchising, licensing and merchandizing in their operations. Also, qualitative data is gathered from 201 respondents with interest football. This data is analyzed to ascertain demographics domestic clubs can target in their merchandizing schemes and suggest viable avenues of commerce. Ultimately, this study proposes ideals local football teams can adopt to improve capital acquisition and augment their brand enhancement campaigns. Correspondingly, the study identifies mediums of commerce and advertising local football teams can utilize in merchandising. Lastly, the role of the media and the GFA in the successful application of suggested tools is discussed in this study