Elizabeth Amkpa is the general manager, Kwese TV an Econet Media exclusive sports content platform. She spoke to BusinessDay about Kwese’s strategies to deepen the pay TV market in Nigeria and rights to NBA, Carabao Cup, NFL, Copa del Rey and the 2018 FIFA World Cup matches. Excerpts:
What gives your sports channel edge over other competitors?
Kwese TV is in the market to do something different as regards pay TV business in Nigeria. Before now, the focus was just on football, but Kwese TV has come up with sports in total package including football. Nigeria has come to the realisation that the youths hold the power and there is diversity.
While you are excited about your football, you can also enjoy the best of basketball from the National Basketball Association (NBA), and other sports. Apart from football, we have boxing, American football, tennis, hockey, cricket, gulf, motorsports; just excitements that the youths enjoy and lots of adults enjoy it also.
Most people don’t watch football and that gives us the edge over our competitors. We want to promote other sporting activities.
What are your plans for your subscribers ahead of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia?
Shortly, we will roll out our plans for our subscribers, but I can assure our subscribers that all the 64 live matches will be on Kwese TV.
Tell us more about Kwese Sports Channels
On Kwese TV, we have Kwese Sports 1, Kwese Sports 2 and Kwese free Sports. On Kwese Sports 1, you watch the NBA, Carabao Cup, Copa del Rey games. On Kwese sport 2, we have the NFL, Hockey league, Rugby and NFL Super Bowl.
The Kwese free Sports, apart from being on the free zone, we air the English Premier League (EPL) live matches on Channel 285. Our subscribers also get to enjoy free channels if their subscription runs out. Apart from Kwese TV, we have Kwese free to air that you can watch on channel UHF 32.
Kwese TV aired the last two Anthony Joshua’s fights; will Kwese TV air live his next fight with Joseph Parker slated for March 31?
I can confirm to you and our subscribers that Anthony Joshua fight with Joseph Parker coming up on March 31 will be live and exclusive on Kwese Sports 1.
Can you speak of Kwese partnership with the NBA and your plans to grow the game of basketball in Nigeria?
It still boils down to saying sports is not only about football, there are talents in other sports and sporting activities in Nigeria beyond football which we will like to showcase. One of these sports is Basketball.
The NBA is the most rated basketball league in the world, showcasing this on our platform to our esteemed customers will help grow the game here in Nigeria.
We signed a partnership deal with the NBA to deepen basketball and afford fans opportunity to watch and enjoy the game. One of the aims is to showcase to Africans and Nigerians the best of basketball. Beyond that, we want to go into partnership with the Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF).
In 2017, NBA legend was brought to Nigeria for basketball training for secondary boys and girls in Lagos. We are particularly interested in growing others sports in Nigeria beyond football.
What was the response from your subscribers after the Winter Olympic Games, WTA tournaments and Carabao Cup final on Kwese TV?
All these activities on Kwese TV have been giving us tremendous results in terms of retail awareness, sales and goodwill. Nigerians have really shown us love based on what we have showcased to them. It gives us the feeling that we are doing the right thing and we will keep doing our best.
Do you intend to continue the Kwese Basketball Clinic and how was the response?
It was a fantastic initiative; the feedback we got from the schools that participated was quite encouraging. The best thing for us is to continue it, this we are not doing alone. We are partnering with the NBA, as long they want to have a legend on Africa soil; definitely, Nigeria is one of the first places to come. From the reports that we got from the last edition, we are looking at coming to Nigeria again. When it’s time, we will make it known to Nigerians.
Can you speak on Kwese’s partnership with ESPN to deepen sports broadcasting in Nigeria?
Kwese and ESPN, our objectives and vision are to develop sports beyond football.
ESPN used to be in Africa before they left, we know how important they are in sports reporting and Kwese decided to partner with ESPN and we hope to do it right this time. While we are showing contents that are American, we decided to go for contents that are of grassroots in African origin.
The first thing we did when we brought ESPN on our decoder was to rebrand the website from espn.com to kweseespn.com. What that means is that contents from local origin that are appealing to Nigerians and Africans are picked for the first time to the platform. It’s a long term journey that we have started with ESPN and we have learnt from their last visit to Africa and we are working to ensure that we keep giving out contents that are relevant and most importantly showcasing Nigeria sports on the platform for our subscribers.
Can you tell us more about Kwese Sports rights to some of the most popular football leagues such as Copa del Rey and Carabao Cup?
Carabao Cup and Copa del Rey games are exclusively on Kwese TV. We also have one live English Premier League (EPL) match every Saturday for our valuable customers.
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