Jobs economy is hiding in plain sight, locked behind gates, guarded by officials, and used occasionally for cricket, political rallies, convocations or ceremonies. Pakistan is searching for jobs in all the usual places: industry, exports, agriculture, IT, construction, remittances, government schemes, donor projects and PSDP pipelines. 

Pakistan has stadiums built by the PSDP by politicians who want to show . It has expo centers. It has convention halls. It has youth. It has cities. It has music, sport, food, drama, comedy, YouTubers, podcasters, school teams, college leagues, women athletes, freelancers, event managers, caterers, sound technicians, camera crews, editors and millions of young people looking for work. What it does not have is a serious entertainment economy because these entertainment places developed at great expense are controlled by a government bureaucracy run on colonial lines with no commercial orientation. That is the missed opportunity.

A rough public inventory suggests Pakistan has about 56 major stadiums with capacities above roughly 2,000, with combined seating capacity close to 850,000. This excludes hundreds of smaller school, college, district, club, cantonment and private grounds. Add to this Karachi Expo Centre, Lahore Expo Centre, Jinnah Convention Centre, Pak-China Friendship Centre, Aiwan-e-Iqbal, Hyderabad Expo Center, China center in Islamabad and new or planned expo facilities in Peshawar and Quetta. The hardware is there. The problem is that the software is missing. These assets are not run as platforms. They are run as buildings.

Most stadiums are controlled by sports boards, development authorities, government departments, municipalities, public agencies or politically connected bodies. Their use is episodic. Cricket occasionally activates some of them because cricket no because cricket has a commercial model but because it has VIP backing. We never learn of the proceeds from ickets, broadcast rights, sponsorships, food stalls and media coverage. None of these places have any financial reporting because they are government controlled.

Expo centers do somewhat better because exhibitions have market logic: firms rent stalls, visitors come, vendors work, hotels fill, transport moves and deals are made. But most stadiums remain dead capital most of the year. That is not a harmless inefficiency. It is an economic failure. A stadium is not merely a sports facility. It is an urban production machine. It can generate tickets, food sales, parking, advertising, naming rights, streaming content, merchandise, coaching academies, local tourism, women’s leagues, school tournaments, esports, concerts, comedy nights, food festivals, book fairs, startup expos, creator conventions and city festivals.........

© The Friday Times