Both basketball and volleyball are immensely popular sports in Kenya and both occasionally pull decent crowds. However in a league that is dominated by corporate teams, you have a situation where none of the teams have a committed fan base therefore the number of fans that each team can pull at each game is meagre unless the game is free. The solution to this problem of lack of public interest is to encourage community teams i.e teams that represent a specific region or county.
Safaricom recently pulled the plug on the sakata ball tournament after Football Kenya Limited (FKF) demanded a 20% share of the ksh 75 million that Safaricom was going to spend on the tournament. Safaricom was getting very good mileage and excellent publicity by sponsoring an immensely popular tournament that pitted various community teams against each other. The tournament was popular and drew large crowds precisely because the teams were community teams representing various neighbourhoods or counties.
Approach Safaricom to sponsor a community tournament
Now that Safaricom is no longer sponsoring Sakata ball, they have some cash to burn and are probably looking for another outlet. Volleyball and basketball are perfect candidates for a company like Safaricom to sponsor a community tournament. Both these sports have the potential to pull large crowds.
A city wide basketball or volleyball tournament pitting teams from Nairobi’s various neighbourhoods like Kibera, Langata, Kilimani etc will draw huge crowds because people from the various areas will show up to cheer their home teams. A company like Safaricom can gain very good publicity from this.
Construct playing grounds and gain naming rights
There is a dearth of basketball and volleyball grounds in Kenya. As such it is difficult for upcoming youngsters to find a place to play. Yet building such grounds will not only help create Kenya’s next generation of talent but is also a good way to keep the youth of Kenya busy and away from drugs, crime and gangs.
Constructing a basketball or volleyball ground is something that companies like Safaricom can easily accomplish. They recently spent ksh 15 million to construct terraces at the RFUEA rugby grounds. Sponsoring the construction of sports grounds all over Nairobi and gaining naming rights for these grounds is a good way for a company to gain publicity.
There is plenty of space in Nairobi that is owned by the Nairobi city council, including various sports grounds. KBF and / or KVF should approach the Nairobi city council with a view towards converting these grounds into basketball and volleyball fields with naming rights given to the sponsoring company. So for example, instead of naming a ground as “Nairobi city council fields in Dandora”, the fields can be named “Safaricom fields in Dandora”.
Community teams are the future
If Kenya ever hopes to have professional leagues in either volleyball or basketball, it is going to require teams that can draw crowds and TV audiences. Corporate teams such as those that currently dominate the league simply cannot draw huge crowds. However community teams if created today, can start building a fan base year after year and after say 10 years, these twams will be drawing large enough crowds that they will be able to garner sponsorship , TV deals and eventually pay players professional salaries.
The ball is in the court of KVF and KBF to create a strategic plan that will make this happen.
The plans are in place, it is execution that is lacking