Recent sporting successes and the wisdom of anticipating govt or corporate sponsorship

Last week, in that quietly efficient way of theirs the spectacularly named Silverbacks qualified for their third straight Fiba Afrobasket championship.

We live in a pandemic and most of us had to settle for video highlights showing 6 7” forward Arthur Kalume, rolling over Morocco. Still, it was reassuring to see another demonstration of the progress Uganda basketball has made over the years.

And that was just basketball, but have you all noticed an upturn in the fortunes of Uganda sports, like I have? In the past few months, and despite the effect the pandemic has on sports, the Hippos (national U-20) made an Afcon final, and the feeling within the Olympics camp is that in Joshua Chepetgai and Jacob Kiplimo we are good for at least two podium finishes in the middle distances.

The truth then is that now various disciplines through sheer application have – or soon will have – the capacity to compete continentally or even globally. I imagine that should put not just corporations, but also the Government on high alert.  

From a government perspective, one imagines this is an opportunity they mustn’t pass up because sports can be a powerful image sanitizer. 

The difficulty is, our small budgets and competing demands mean sports is the first causality in government-funding priority wars. 

After all, wouldn’t it be gravely irresponsible for the government to attend to entertainment, while Covid-19 continues to wreak havoc on an already stressed population?

So, the government finds it convenient to throw up its hands and say that there is no money. The thing though is if there was a will, the money would be found. And for that matter the government sometimes appears like an opportunist quick to make excuses when the fundraising cycles start, but happy to throw welcome dinners, when the glory is assured.

Nonetheless, it doesn’t seem like the sports world minds. Indeed, the greater and the more immediate threat to sports, is not the lack of funding from government, but the unpreparedness of various disciplines to feed the growing appetite of corporate sponsorship.

Corporate sponsorship can be a more potent source of funding for sports. But we also know the corporate world’s own inclination to court the ready. The sponsorships clubs like KCCA have attracted in recent years and the associated success, didn’t come by accident but were rather the byproducts of the building of structures of accountability. 

Yet, when I look around, I don’t see that many disciplines have followed that lead. For example, what is Athletics’ response to Football’s union with DStv, Hima Cement, StarTimes, and MTN?

Why is it that the fruits that are reaped by the KCCA’s haven’t yet persuaded others to put their houses in order?
What effect any of those examples will have on the sustenance of recent successes will depend on what sports itself wants or does.

If our sports aspire to be competitive at a global level, then they are going to have to adopt a global mindset. Mostly and first, that calls for professionalization and there is no better place to start than with our individual governance structures.

And this is not to say courting Government and corporations is to be shunned completely. But shambolic governance in one hand and a begging bowl in the other is rather counter- productive, especially if it intended to attract the backing of a government stretched by countless priorities or corporates keen on structure. 

One would rather sort out their house first, go out, and do their thing. If help comes, it comes. A bit like the Silverbacks really.

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Twitter: @MBanturaki