The Kuala Lumpur 2017 Games which coincides with the 60th Merdeka celebrations, creates tremendous sponsorship opportunities for corporate companies in the country, said YB En Khairy Jamaluddin, the Minister of Youth and Sports.
During his presentation at the Sports Pitch Conference here yesterday, the minister shared with representatives of companies the various sponsorship possibilities available to them. This included programmes like FitMalaysia, Hari Sukan Negara, National Football Development Programme, Anugerah Sukan Negara, Kita Juara and Kuala Lumpur 2017 Games.
“It’s a tremendous opportunity for sponsors,” said Khairy of the Kuala Lumpur 2017 Games and 60th Merdeka celebrations being held in the same year. “We want to be the champions.”
The Minister revealed that he would be announcing the first wave of sponsors in the coming weeks. “I will be announcing the sponsors next month. We are in the final stages of signing up our first four or five sponsors. We hope to raise up to RM50 million for the SEA Games with at least RM 30 million in cash.”
Meanwhile on the upgrading works and preparations, Khairy commented: “So far everything is on track. We are monitoring all upgrading work. Bukit Jalil is being upgraded with work being done on the National Stadium, Putra Stadium and Aquatics Centre. All the work should be done by June next year so we have two months to make any rectification that may be required before August.”
He said the second cluster would be in KLCC. “We have booked the KLCC where we will have a few sports with the concept of SEA Games in KL. This is so we can attract fans that are in the city to follow the Games. The third cluster is in Putrajaya and fourth in PWTC.”
“All bookings have been made. For those non-sports specific venues, like KLCC, we will have to make sure they are ready closer to the date.”
The Ministry was also closely following the work at the stand-alone venues like Dataran Merdeka, Velodrome and Langkawi.
Meanwhile, the Sports Pitch Conference was held to encourage companies, local and international, to consider sponsoring local sports development programmes.
“All this while, sports sponsorship has primarily revolved around corporate social responsibility which was perceived to not bring any returns to these companies. But now we have proven that sports is business, and sports is big business with big returns for companies that invest in sports.”
