Is there any startup out here making solutions for the sports industry? Nigerian or African.
Football (and sports in general) is a really big industry with sponsorships like the Nike national team jersey contract costing as little as $2m and athlete contracts that rake in up to $5m per year. Not to mention that everyday sports startup are acquired left, right and centre.
I think it’s time that Nigerians in Nigeria (and diaspora) stepped up to the challenge and start building solutions that will improve athlete performance like sports shoes, jerseys and the likes.
In the meantime, I did create a fantasy football team featuring the good guys at Printivo. You can check that here:
What I was trying to bring out here was that startups planning to into enterprise solutions already have a fallow ground that they can harness in the Nigerian football league and we should step up before someone else comes in and it becomes a case of “they came to take our jobs”.
The jobs are not there yet, it’s time to create them.
I feel your question is very ambiguous and might not get the desired answers.
I will however answer you question based on every paragraph you have highlighted.
Paragraph 1
Before any solution is proffered there has to be existing problem. Nigeria Sports industry is plagued with a lot of problems. A single solution cannot solve all the problems in the Industry. Maybe you should identify the problems you have noticed in the industry.
Paragraph 2
Sport Sponsorship is not limited to Sport manufacturers alone, other companies can sponsor a team or an athlete. In Nigeria Sponsorship is low because, Administrators of the Sport industry do no show a clear path of growth or progress.
Paragraph 3
The Question is : Is there a gap in Nigeria for Sports Wear? I personally dont think so. If you watch the Nigeria Premier League , virtually all the 20 teams use locally made jerseys and Socks. Only there boots are Top brands( Addidas ,Nike and Puma). I feel what you mean here is building a strong brand that can compete globally.
When I talked about sponsorship, I specifically mentioned the $2m Nike contract and the $5m+ of some athletes. I brought these out because Nike apart from manufacturing clothing for sports, they also have one of the most popular running apps in “Nike Plus” or “Running” as they now prefer to call it.
There is a gap for a sportswear company because the current jerseys you see on the league cannot even compare to what is seen on the other side of the continent in South Africa. There needs to be a standard people can see and want to associate with.
Quick question, would you buy any Nigerian league team’s jersey? No.
Let’s leave that aside for a bit, have you imagined what the stadium experience is like in Wembley stadium where the highest speed internet is provided to 90,000 people simultaneously? Has that happened here yet?
There’s a lot that needs to be done, young developers should look here too. We might have the next Runtastic somewhere waiting to blow up
When you say locally produced in the premier league, what do you mean?
Chelsea are a london baseed club. Their kit manufacturer is adidas which in based in Munich. Their authentic kit and replica kits are manufactured in China and Thailand respectively.
We do not need to form our own sports companies as China found out. All that needs to be done is to localize the content.
We signed a deal with Nike that leaves a lot of grey areas for distribution. That is potential for any willing marketer.
I did not say locally produced (or maybe I did, but that was not the intention) because we both know that the league is not marketable as it is currently. What I made mention was local technology to drive football growth.
By that I also included performance tacking products like fitness trackers and much more.