Leading TV content provider, MultiChoice Nigeria, has expressed delight over the remarkable transformation that basketball has undergone since it began the sponsorship of the sports in Nigeria.
The sponsorship of the basketball league, which started over four years ago, led to the re-christening of the men’s league to DStv Basketball League.
Other details include investment in terms of sponsorship fees, live broadcast of matches on premium sports channels SuperSport, and others.
The 2013 season, which was brought to an exciting conclusion at the Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos, at the weekend, saw Kano Pillars emerging the top team in the country when it won the Final Four round of matches.
Pillars beat Union Bank of Lagos to a second place, thereby carting home the N1 million winner’s cash prize.
Union Bank and Dodan Warriors, which came third, were rewarded with cash prizes of N750,000 and N500,000, respectively
John Ugbe, Managing Director, MultiChoice Nigeria, said matches of the DStv basketball league are starting to attract spectators to the courts in both the Savannah and Atlantic Conferences, a testament to the attraction basketball now holds for families.
“The technical level of the teams has gone up several notches; matches in the two conferences are more competitive and interesting, thereby boosting the number of fans coming to the courts to cheer their teams. Basketball is a family sports and we are glad that our contribution to enhance the attractiveness of the sports in Nigeria is bearing fruits.”
Sponsorship of the league, said Ugbe, is in line with the developmental role MultiChoice is playing in Nigeria, which goes beyond bringing the best content from the world and taking the best Nigerian content to the rest of the world.
“We have invested in capacity building across different sectors. The technical crew that covers these matches, which are broadcast to local and international audiences, are all Nigerians, trained here and overseas. While we celebrate the increasing technical depth of the teams, we also celebrate the increasing technical abilities of the support structure that the sponsorship is helping to foster,” added Ugbe.
The initial four-year sponsorship, which value was put at N150 million, was signed in 2009 and more than doubled to N218 million for the 2013 – 2017 seasons.
