The African Sports & Creative Institute - Week 46
Akkam?(Hallo?) Isin attam? Jirtuu? (How are you?) in Oromo from the Editorial desk - welcoming you to our weekly brief. Oromo is the most commonly spoken native language in Ethiopia in the Eastern part of Africa - our feature country this week.
November second half of the month, and some action in sports business we're looking at is the world's top innovative brands in sports, FIFA's collaboration with Hawk-Eye on innovation in football, and MultiChoices' mixed results for the year 2023-24 to name but a few.
Happy International Men's Day too to all the men who read and follow us and are part of the conversations!
Drop us a line on [email protected] greetings or something we may have missed. Let’s get going…Anaa dhufu !
400 of the world’s start-ups voted for the top innovative brands in sports. Here are the top 5 in each of the categories including Media & Broadcasting; Teams & Clubs; Federations; Global Sports Brands; Sports & Sporting Goods and Games and Sports Betting.
FIFA and Hawk-Eye Innovations Ltd have launched Football Technology Centre AG to advance football technology, focusing on automated event detection algorithms and instant offside decision-making for faster, more accurate officiating. Let's pray this will reduce the incidence of controversial decisions both at national league and international tournaments.
PUMA Group PUMA has unveiled new home and away kits for five African football powerhouses, blending culture, art, and history into modern designs. In preparation of the upcoming African Cup of Nations CAF Confederation of African Football 2025, this is a welcome gesture to whip up national appeal and capitalize on merchandising.
MultiChoice Group - the holding group of SuperSport and Showmax has seen steady growth in appealing to its audience across the continent. With streaming platforms and global brands such as Netflix and 亚马逊 investing in live sports, it remains to be seen who will make the best of this on the continent.
萬事達卡 launched its African esports journey with a groundbreaking summit in Casablanca, uniting gaming, finance, and tech leaders. At Mastercard’s Africa Esports Summit, key leaders from the finance, technology and gaming industries came together to discuss the integration of gaming with payment solutions and the necessity for regulatory frameworks to strengthen Africa’s esports ecosystem. The aim of the event was to encourage collaboration and build cross-sector partnerships within Africa’s gaming industry.
ESPN introduces 'FACTS': A Generative AI Avatar in Testing Phase
ESPN is introducing a Gen AI avatar 'FACTS' to help 'promote education and fun around sports analytics' with information drawn from ESPN Analytics. it’s going to be “...promoting education and fun around sports analytics” with information drawn from ESPN Analytics, which includes data like the Football Power Index (FPI), player and team statistics, and game schedules. This will be an interesting development once the AI is deployed.
What We Love
It is not often that an African country's admitted to a niche sport. It is even more suprising that Kenya's 'Ice Lions' do not have a standard ice rink for their training and regular games.
Not discouraged, the Kenya Ice Hockey Federation was admitted to the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) as the 84th member!
The team which trains in a local hotel which houses the only ice rink in the country, has won the hearts of admirers from Canada and Northern America. The local federation has embarked on a youth development program - currently housing 50 boys and girls. These will supplement the national team which has 24 men and 12 women in its ranks.
Being on the fifth African nation to join the sport, alongside Algeria, Morocco, South Africa, and Tunisia. It will remain to be seen if it can claim top honours on the continent and the world, as the Winter Games approach in Milan-Cortina in 2026.
Go Lions!
What are We Reading
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Players by Matthew Futterman chronicles the remarkable evolution of sports from a modest profession to a multi-billion-dollar global industry.
Beginning with Arnold Palmer's transformative partnership with agent Mark McCormack in the 1960s, the book unveils how athletes, agents, and executives reshaped sports into a powerhouse of endorsements, media deals, and record-breaking salaries.
Through captivating stories—like the 1973 Wimbledon boycott and MLB’s first free agency—Futterman highlights the pivotal moments that elevated athletes from earning modest incomes to dominating the financial pyramid. This behind-the-scenes narrative explores the cultural, commercial, and human drama that revolutionized the modern sports world.
?Country Focus
Ethiopia:
One of the world’s storied countries, it may also be referred to as Abyssinia. Ethiopia comes from “Ethiop or Ethiopis ?(?????)” which comes from the name of the first King. It is one of two African countries not colonized. What else does it have in store?
* Ethiopia is the oldest country in Africa and one of two never fully colonized by Europeans;
* Addis Ababa - the capital city is considered the ‘highest capital city sitting at 2,355 metres above sea level;
* It is one of the top 10 largest economies in Africa and more recently considered the largest in Eastern Africa;
* Ethiopians use a 13-month calendar and are currently in the year 2017. They also have their own timing system working with a 12-hour standard.
* Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee and home to the most coffee biodiversity in the world;
* Dallol in Ethiopia is the hottest inhabited place on Earth. The country also hosts the longest existing lava lake;
* Ethiopia is considered to be the birthplace of the Rastafarian movement - “Ras” meaning Chief or Leader, while “Tafari” was the first name of Emperor Haile Selassie I - the last monarch and considered to be the spiritual inspiration of the movement.
* Ethiopia is the ‘diplomatic capital’ of Africa - hosting the HQs of the African Union, UNESCO, UNDP, UN Economic Commission for Africa among other continental and global bodies.
* It has more than 200 dialects spoken by the people of the country.
Population: 132,900,000 GDP: ? $145.03 billion ?Nominal per capita: $ 4,050
Sports:
Football Milestones: Ethiopia’s national team, the Walia, one of the founding members of the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) , and is currently placed 148 in the FIFA rankings. They last won the AFCON in 1962 and are seeing a resurgence in recent years.
Olympic Participation: Through Abebe Bikila, Ethiopia was the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to win an Olympic gold medal. It remains one of the major sporting nations in the middle and long distance races in Athletics.
Athletics: Ethiopia has some of Africa’s greatest athletes in Abebe Bikila, Derartu Tulu, Haile Gebreselassie, Kenenisa Bekele and the Dibaba sisters.?
That's for all for this week. As November's coming to the tail end of the month and year, we welcome your thoughts, comments and any form of feedback on the newsletter. We appreciate this!
Till next time, to you and your fellow man, Happy International Men's Day!
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