EFFECT OF COST LEADERSHIP STRATEGY ON THE TEAM PERFORMANCE OF FOOTBALL CLUBS IN THE NIGERIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE

Abstract

The Nigerian football league is one of the most popular sports leagues in the world, and it has been attracting more fans and sponsors in recent years. The evolving financial landscape of football, emphasizing the importance of clubs operating sustainably and independently generating revenues. This underscores the need for football clubs in Nigeria to develop effective strategies, such as cost leadership, to maintain financial stability while enhancing on-field performance. Despite its potential impact, there exists a notable gap in research regarding the effect of the cost leadership strategy on the team performance of football clubs within the Nigerian football league. Hence the need to examine the effect of cost leadership strategy on the team performance of football clubs in the Nigerian Football League (NFL). Survey research design was employed for the study and a structured questionnaire on the subject matter was administered. Stratified sampling technique was used to categorize the football clubs and purposive sampling was used to select the 37 out of 90 registered clubs. Fifteen copies of questionnaire were distributed to all the relevant administrators of each of the 37 clubs. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Multiple Regressions were used to examine the effect of cost leadership strategy on team  performance, All tests were conducted at 5% level of significance. The findings on the effect of cost leadership strategy on the team performance league showed that player wages (p=0.001), transfer fees (p=0.000), operational cost (p=0.009), ticket prices (p=0.000) and sponsorship deals (p=0.014) were significant except merchandise prices (p=0.605) that was not significant.  The study concluded that, competitive strategy variables were found to be significant to financial performance of football clubs in the Nigeria football league. The study recommends that football clubs should regularly review and adapt their strategies to align with the dynamic nature of the Nigeria football league.

Keyword: Cost Leadership Strategy, Team Performance, Football Clubs,  Nigerian Football League