INFLECTION POINT REACHED IN HOW WE THINK ABOUT SCHOOL SPORT
Chris Erasmus: Rector Grey High School
“South Africa stands at an inflection point in how we think about school sport. On one side sit broadcasters, analytics firms, and commercial partners who insist that monetising school sport is responsible, modern, and necessary. On the other side are educators, psychologists, and increasingly, parents, who see something far more concerning: the slow erosion of the educational heart of school sport, and the transformation of children into commercial content.
The recent push, loudly championed by platforms such as SuperSport Schools, is framed as benevolent. We are told that commercialisation funds better facilities, better coaching, and better medical care. We are told that pressure already exists in school sport, and that commercial partnerships merely help to manage it. These claims, however, overlook a fundamental truth: the purpose of school sport is education, not entertainment. Once the incentives shift from developing children to chasing audiences, everything else follows. It is an inevitable “unintended consequence”.
School Sport Has an Educational Mandate, Not a Commercial One The South African Schools Act (SASA) is explicit about the purpose of schools: to provide education of progressively high quality; to advance equity; and to protect the rights and wellbeing of learners. School sport falls under this mandate. It is not an independent industry, and it cannot be treated as one.
The Department of Basic Education and the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, in their joint school sport frameworks, emphasise participation, educator led programmes, age appropriate competition, and equitable access across all types of schools. Nothing in national policy endorses the transformation of school fixtures into monetisable media products.
Yet this is exactly what the commercial model encourages. It reframes school sport not as a learning environment but as a performance spectacle. Schools are encouraged to think of themselves as broadcasters; athletes as content producers; and fixtures as inventory to sell to sponsors. This represents a profound departure from the spirit and purpose of public education.
Commercialisation Makes School Sport Semi Professional; That Is Uneducational A school’s primary responsibility is to educate children, not to prepare them for professional sport. Only a tiny fraction of school athletes will ever play professionally, and an equally small percentage will receive sports scholarships. For everyone else, the overwhelming majority, sport is meant to teach teamwork, resilience, belonging, discipline, and joy.
When schools begin chasing commercial visibility, however, the developmental purpose of sport is replaced by performance pressure. The incentives change:
- Coaches feel pressure to produce winning teams that attract cameras.
- Adolescents feel compelled to specialise early in order to keep their place in teams that receive broadcast coverage.
- Selection becomes biased toward early maturing athletes who can deliver immediate results rather than late bloomers who may flourish with proper developmental support.
- School calendars become overloaded with televised showcases and sponsor driven festivals; this leaves little space for recovery, multi sport participation, or balanced school life.
These concerns are not hypothetical. Research repeatedly warns that early sport specialisation increases the risk of burnout, overuse injuries, anxiety, and dropout from sport. Medical and psychological studies consistently show that the healthiest sporting pathway for children prioritises multi sport participation and broad motor skill development, with specialisation delayed until late adolescence. Commercial models push young athletes in the opposite direction.
The result is predictable. A handful of children may thrive, but most lose the joy of participation; many drop out earlier; and fewer become lifelong participants in physical activity. This contradicts the very purpose of school sport.
Commercialisation Deepens Inequality and Shrinks the National Talent Base South African school sport already rests on a fault line: the divide between well resourced former Model C and independent schools, and the thousands of rural and township schools that struggle with minimal facilities and limited coaching capacity. Commercialisation pours investment, visibility, and sponsorship into the already privileged schools; these are the institutions with strong brands, well maintained facilities, and established sporting reputations.
This creates a self reinforcing cycle:
- Schools with infrastructure receive broadcast exposure.
- Exposure attracts sponsors.
- Sponsors bring money.
- Money enhances facilities further.
- The cycle continues.
Meanwhile, the majority of public schools, including those where the greatest untapped talent lies, remain invisible. No sponsor will chase a school without a field or reliable transport in the same way they chase a well-resourced one. No broadcaster will stream a match played on a patchy surface without stands as the main attraction during primetime advertising time slots. The national talent pool therefore shrinks rather than grows. Late bloomers in under resourced schools are overlooked, and promising athletes in rural areas receive no meaningful coaching or competition structure.
We are often told that streaming platforms grow the game. In reality, they grow only a portion of it, and that portion is already privileged. Sporting ecosystems weaken when talent funnels narrow. Eventually, the system collapses under its own weight.
Commercialisation Turns Children into Commodities Perhaps the most serious ethical concern is that commercialisation encourages schools to view children as assets rather than learners.
Broadcast platforms measure audience minutes; sponsorship analysts measure brand exposure value; and schools are encouraged to monetise their media properties. Yet these media properties are not products. They are children, minors, and adolescents who cannot give meaningful informed consent to being part of a commercial venture.
School leaders should be asking:
- Who owns the footage of my learners?
- Who profits from it?
- How are their rights protected?
- What happens to this digital footprint years later?
We would never allow a corporate entity to turn an English class or a mathematics class into sponsored content; therefore, it is worth asking why this is considered acceptable for sport.
There Is a Better Way Forward
South Africa needs stronger school sport; it does not, however, need even more commercialised school sport. The solution lies in public investment, shared facilities, educator training, equitable resource distribution, and, yes, private partners who support the educational process above their own self-interest.
Private partners can play an important role, but only under strict conditions:
- Educational outcomes must take precedence over commercial ones.
- School calendars must be protected from over competition.
- Multi sport participation must be safeguarded.
- Revenue must be pooled regionally to uplift under resourced schools rather than enrich already elite ones.
- Learner image rights must be governed ethically and transparently.
- School sport must serve the child, not the camera and definitely not the pockets of big companies and self-serving agents.
Commercialising school sport is not modernisation; it is mission drift. It pushes schools away from their educational purpose, deepens inequality, encourages premature professionalisation, and erodes the values that make sport such a powerful teacher.
If we genuinely care about the welfare of young athletes, the integrity of our school system, and the long term strength of South African sport, then our path is clear:
we must protect school sport from commercial capture, not accelerate it.”