The future of sports as an investment opportunity in Africa took centre stage during a recent forum co-hosted by the Giants of Africa and Basketball Africa League in Kigali, Rwanda.
Masai Ujiri, president of the Toronto Raptors and president and founder of the non-profit Giants of Africa, led the half-day meeting, dubbed Moving Sports Forward, attended by leaders of government, sports, and other sectors, to discuss the development of sports on the African continent. Giants of Africa uses basketball to educate and enrich the lives of African youth by providing quality facilities, gear, and coaches to growing the game across the continent.
Africa Investment Forum (AIF) Senior Director Chinelo Anohu joined Amadou Gallo Fall, President of the Basketball Africa League, two-time NBA All-star Luol Deng, and sports journalist Usher Komugisha for a panel discussion on the enormous potential of sports as a global business driver.
Anohu said that the focus on sports as a business was timely. She highlighted the importance of investing in the entire sports value chain, as well as the role that sports can play in driving much-needed social cohesion across the continent.
Anohu said the Africa Investment Forum was working with governments and the private sector to promote sports as a catalyst for business. She stressed the need to create an enabling environment in the form of investment-friendly policies, including the right legal frameworks and tax breaks and incentives.
The meeting in Rwanda is part of a series of events the Africa Investment Forum is participating in in 2022 to drum up investor interest in its Market Days to be held later in the year.
Africa’s sports industries are attracting increasing interest from local and global investors. This is long overdue. The continent has many characteristics of a powerhouse sports market. Its athletes are world famous across football, basketball, and track-and-field competition. And a growing and increasingly middle-class population offers a potential untapped audience for domestic sport leagues. Now, the Africa Investment Forum’s Sports as a Business Catalyst initiative is working to make this a reality.
During a fireside chat held as part of the forum, Rwandan President Paul Kagame shared his vision of sport as a platform for economic growth.
“Sport is not only an enjoyment but something that people in business like to participate in,” said President Kagame. “It has become an investment, a space where people can put their money and get returns as well,”
Praising Rwanda’s efforts to promote women to positions of leadership in government and the private sector and the positive impact this has on society, Anohu called for similar developments in sport. Using coaching as an example, she said, “We need to actively push forward the presence of women in coaching because the skill must also go in tandem with the innate belief that you can succeed. I don’t know that women do that a lot. We need to nurture individuals to the point that they can dare beyond what is physically available. Because in most competitive sports it is always those last ten seconds that determine who wins or who scores or who shoots a basketball,” she said.
While in Kigali, Anohu also took part in the unveiling ceremony for a refurbished basketball court and a youth basketball and life skills clinic, held in conjunction with the NBA.
The Africa Investment Forum is Africa’s premier investment marketplace to accelerate transactions to close Africa’s investment gaps. It is an initiative of the African Development Bank and seven partner institutions: Africa 50, Africa Finance Corporation, Afreximbank, Development Bank of Southern Africa, European Investment Bank, Islamic Development Bank and Trade and Development Bank.
