The SafariCom Inter-Constituency  Super 8

The Safaricom Inter Constituency Super 8 football tournament is one of the few good things to happen to Kenyan football over the past 5 years. It has been a nightmarish time for Kenyan fans since the turn of the millennium, starting with the impunity with which Maina Kariuki robbed KFF coffers to the parallel leagues in 2004 and constant infighting and lack of accountability that has characterized the Kenya football scene of late. The result has been that local fans have been turned away. Football matches  are now poorly attended with most league games being attended by fewer than 100 paying fans. A far cry from its peak in the 1980s when even league matches involving minnows were well attended. Many fans have turned towards the British premier league.

 

Even as recently as the 1990s, a match pitting Gor Mahia and AFC leopards was a crowd puller as indicated by the picture on the left.. Contrast this with the picture on the right taken more recently.

The Super 8 tournament has re-ignited the passion for local football that many fans once had. Fans in Nairobi have become completely engrossed in this tournament. When Dandora FC won the inaugural tournament, the entire estate took to the streets to celebrate. Such scenes havenet been witnessed in Kenya sports since the 1990s. Many of the players are already on their way to becoming playground legends.

This scenario makes perfect sense: Teams that are based on geographical regions can draw upon the passion and pride that people feel for their respective neighbourhoods. Watching and rooting for your neighbourhood team is far more interesting than rooting for some team named after a company, a team that has no fan base to speak of. Legendary neighbourhood teams such as Black Mamba and Hakati which were once among the top teams in the nation and were on the verge of dying have been thrown a lifeline by the Super 8 tournament and are now recreating the same passions they created among fans throughout the 1970s and 80s. 

	Company's stand to gain more mileage and good publicity by sponsoring events that can draw public interest than by creating a company team

Kenyan youth are getting an opportunity to play and earn some money while doing it

What SafariCom have done is commendable. They have taken it upon themselves to bypass our corrupt and egocentric officials and create a tournament of their own. A tournament that is now drawing more fans than the national league.  Too many companies in Kenya seem to think that they can get mileage by forming a company team. Teams like Tusker, KCB, Securicor, Sher Agencies and the various Sugar companies are all sponsored by their respective institutions. There is nothing wrong with having an institutional team. In fact such teams have played a crucial role in the building the game in Kenya and ought to be supported. The trouble with such teams is that they have no fan base. As a result, these companies gain very little mileage from funding a football team. It is no wonder that such teams are usually disbanded as soon as the company starts making cost cutting measures. Some companies like East African Breweries have even gone as far as sponsoring a tournament featuring foreign teams at the expense of local teams. This is a poor public relations move and created a lot of resentment among Kenyan fans who felt left out. Its high time that companies in Kenya started looking for more financially sound ways of being involved in sport. Safaricom have already blazed the trail in this regard. They have created a marketing machine that will endear fans to them and gravitate these fans towards Safaricom products.

Tusker played to empty stadia when they sponsored a tournament featuring foreign teams

The next logical step is for Safaricom will now take their concept national. Ideally they should team up with other companies to create a national Inter constituency or an inter-city tournament encompassing all 8 provinces. There is absolutely no doubt that such a tournament would draw far larger crowds than the national league. Most fans would rather go to the stadia to root for their neighbourhood or town team than to watch a match pitting tow institutions like say KCB and Tusker or Posta and Sher Agencies.

Another logical step in this new model is to expand to other sports. Basketball and volleyball are two sports that have the potential to be crowd pullers. Yet the respective federations have shown an inability to grow the game. Those two sports are basically dead outside of Nairobi because no upcountry leagues exist. And where they do, they are so poorly and anonymously run that they cannot possibly have any impact on the national game. There is therefore a gap for any company that can take this opportunity.

Matches involving the national volleyball team have shown the ability to draw large crowds. A company like KCB or Kenya Pipeline would get more mileage, publicity and gain a wider marketing base if they sponsored a national Inter City Tornament in addition to sponsoring a club team.

Another logical step is for Safaricom to pay for naming rights of the various football grounds all over Nairobi. The City council is clearly incapable of maintaining these grounds and it makes more sense for them to lease them strictly for sporting use. Safaricom and other companies can gain plenty of good publicity by naming a stadium Safaricom Woodley grounds and Safaricom Jericho grounds. They can then use these grounds as another marketing tool.

The media in Kenya should now realize that the super 8 has a bigger following within Nairobi and should therefore give it more coverage.