From Zero to Millions: Pulse Sports Journey and the Rise of African Sports Media with James Torvaney

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast

[00:00:03] Two and a half years ago

[00:00:04] I got this option to move to Nigeria to build post sports basically from scratch to build a sports media company

[00:00:10] We've kind of hit a plateau of a few million users. We're ahead of a lot of our established competitors

[00:00:15] But I think further growth is hard and slow

[00:00:18] I think talent and recruiting is for us and for every business that we've worked with is the number one challenge

[00:00:25] 90% of my work is just revolving around either managing the ones

[00:00:28] We already have or training them the transformative effect both good and bad on the industry

[00:00:34] It's gonna make a lot of those people redundant and for those that don't adapt it could be quite painful

[00:00:40] Stay tuned as we bring you inspiring people who are unlocking Africa's economic potential

[00:00:47] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast with your host Terser Adamu

[00:00:55] Welcome to the Unlocking Africa podcast where we find amazing people who are doing amazing things to unlock Africa's economic potential

[00:01:04] Today, we have a very special guest. We have James Torvani

[00:01:08] Who is the managing director of post sports and built post sports from scratch to over two million monthly users

[00:01:18] They are now the market leaders in online sports news in Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda

[00:01:25] Welcome to the podcast James. How are you? Thank you very much Terser. I'm good. Thanks. I'm great just arrived in Lagos yesterday

[00:01:32] So I'm enjoying the heat compared to London

[00:01:36] Fantastic Lagos Lagos my spiritual home

[00:01:40] How is Lagos at the moment apart from that humidity?

[00:01:43] Yes, it's hot and humid I think it's noticeable since I was last here in December actually how much

[00:01:51] The prices have increased. I think you know the general inflation globally

[00:01:55] But also with the deflation of the niroids quite a significant operational challenge and you know in three years

[00:02:02] It's gone from around 500 to it's over 1500 naira to their dollars

[00:02:08] so maybe not the most optimistic point to start off on but

[00:02:12] These are some of the challenges that we do have to deal with working in Nigeria

[00:02:18] No, it's very true challenging times in Nigeria and globally the moment

[00:02:23] And I'm sure it impacts the work that each and every one of us does and I guess it might make part of the discussion for today

[00:02:31] But no, thank you for showing that with us James

[00:02:34] What I do at the beginning of each interview is to get the guests to introduce themselves

[00:02:40] So introduce yourself and tell us about James Torvani

[00:02:45] Thanks Tessa. So I mean, I think you

[00:02:49] You gave me quite a grand introduction. I don't tend to like to big myself up too much. I mean, I think I'm just

[00:02:56] Hustling and learning along with everyone else

[00:02:59] You know my name is James Torvani. I'm managing director of post sports

[00:03:03] My background is actually not in sports at all. It's in finance

[00:03:08] Accounting I sell that with PwC

[00:03:10] moved to West Africa in 2016 and

[00:03:13] I've worked in really kind of every industry since I've worked in solar. I've worked in agriculture poultry farming

[00:03:20] logistics international development, etc and

[00:03:24] Two and a half years ago

[00:03:25] I got this option to move to Nigeria to build post sports basically from scratch to build a sports media company

[00:03:31] I've always wanted to come to Nigeria since I was a teenager to live with

[00:03:35] so I just kind of jumped to that chance and threw myself head first into

[00:03:41] Sports and sports media and since then we've launched in Nigeria

[00:03:44] We launched in Kenya and Uganda as well

[00:03:48] There is a wider pulse group, which is also present in other countries

[00:03:52] And yeah, and so we've built that and in in all three of those countries

[00:03:56] We are the best in terms of patres and social media following the largest

[00:04:01] sports and entertainment publishers

[00:04:04] Indigenous sports news

[00:04:06] Detainment of publishers in those countries so excluding kind of international outlets like BBC and that's where we are at the moment

[00:04:14] Fantastic. So you mentioned you have a background in finance worked in a range of industries

[00:04:20] Can we go into a bit more detail in terms of how did you come about joining post sports?

[00:04:25] I'm assuming you don't have a media background. How did that opportunity come about and why did you think it was the right

[00:04:33] opportunity and potentially the right time

[00:04:36] So I think from my point of view and I often make quite impulsive decisions

[00:04:40] so I wouldn't necessarily encourage anyone to

[00:04:44] follow my

[00:04:45] Decision-making processes, but I just really wanted to come to Nigeria

[00:04:49] I think since probably since I was around 16 17 when I was a

[00:04:54] aspiring musician, I

[00:04:57] Just I really got into

[00:04:59] Everything West African I think starting with the music I used to listen to a lot of the fellow kuti as well as

[00:05:06] Sukus and high-life music

[00:05:08] So I got into that

[00:05:09] You know, I used to hang out with a lot of not specifically Nigerians but a lot of francophone

[00:05:14] I used to hang out predominantly with the francophone

[00:05:18] African community in middle school, which is where I was going to school

[00:05:21] And so there were a few Congolese I've or in so I would go out go to their parties and dance to Kousis

[00:05:30] 17 year old white boy. I had no real connections to those cultures and I just loved it to be honest

[00:05:35] And I thought it was a very refreshing change from

[00:05:40] the predominant culture in that I was exposed to I think in Northern England, you know around at the time

[00:05:46] Most of my friends were you know playing football going down the pub and you know drinking beers and getting blackout drunk

[00:05:53] And that just didn't appeal to me, you know

[00:05:56] The music and the dance did and the you know color for outfits and everything and and this was before the video became a thing

[00:06:03] so

[00:06:04] That was kind of the seed that was planted and then I think when when I finished my charted accountancy

[00:06:11] Qualification I was a bit of a loss. I just thought it was such you know, I was so under stimulated

[00:06:15] And I wanted something completely different. So

[00:06:19] Go and touch this amazing seas that go and Sierra Leone and so hey, that sounds like fun

[00:06:24] You know, I'll Google it and I saw as beaches and rainforests. That sounds like an adventure. So I went there

[00:06:30] For three months, you know, it was very like kind of pan African pro African like quite

[00:06:36] I would say like naive, you know green

[00:06:38] Yeah, mine

[00:06:40] And it was super difficult first, you know ended up after that three month contract

[00:06:45] I picked up bits of work. I started up business ended up staying there for more or less five years

[00:06:51] Sometimes I wonder how but I did

[00:06:54] and

[00:06:55] You know and in a few other places around Africa for short periods as well

[00:06:59] And then I think I got approached

[00:07:02] Not directly for this job

[00:07:03] Someone actually asked me for help like do I know anyone who would be interested in also hiring a number of roles

[00:07:09] And I was like, well actually I would be interested

[00:07:12] because I was working recruitment at the time and I said, you know what can I say in my application and

[00:07:17] More than anything else. I just wanted to come to Nigeria. I didn't really care what the role was but it sounded fun

[00:07:23] You know, and I had exposure to entertainment and sports over that sounds like fun

[00:07:28] My role is more like commercial strategy as you know, we have a content team. So it's not really like a media

[00:07:35] Didn't need a media background to join it. So

[00:07:39] Yeah, that was where that was where I came in and I think you know

[00:07:43] It's something quite important when in Africa is quite different to the job market in the UK

[00:07:47] Where you know in the UK, I think people tend to be quite specialist

[00:07:52] In specific skills and I think in Africa like you get a lot of like general management positions

[00:07:57] Whereas whichever industry you're working in, you know, it's about building connections

[00:08:02] Building networks putting out constant fires and overcoming operational challenges

[00:08:08] And those are quite industry agnostic

[00:08:10] So, you know, if you might come manage one business, you can manage another even if it's in a completely different industry

[00:08:16] Yeah, fantastic. So you've detailed the journey of how you join post-bord

[00:08:21] You mentioned that the current role is more commercial and strategy. So can you share some of those key strategies?

[00:08:29] You employ to grow post-bord to over two million monthly users. I believe it was within six months

[00:08:37] Yeah, so I'll explain that

[00:08:40] When we first started we had a really small team like you know

[00:08:44] I was very involved in that hiring and the first six months was

[00:08:49] Really just killed it on social media. So we actually bought a few Facebook pages that can pages that were managed in Nigeria

[00:08:55] We merged them together. So we started off with a few hundred thousand

[00:08:59] And we were just really good at Facebook, you know, we will be posting links on our page

[00:09:04] You know, we acquired other groups

[00:09:06] We had this network of about 20 people who we used to pay very small amount to and they would just basically repost

[00:09:13] We just pay them to kind of repost our content in all of their groups

[00:09:18] So we had this massive reach where you would see post-sports

[00:09:22] stories being shared and like every Facebook and WhatsApp group in Nigeria and that worked really well for us

[00:09:28] And we got millions of pages a month from that and at that point we probably got 70

[00:09:35] Plus percent of our web traffic directly from Facebook

[00:09:39] So that did really well and we got off the ground very quickly

[00:09:42] You know, I think we were looking at 1.5 to 2 million users and that was in the first four to six months

[00:09:48] Then a few things happened like Facebook changed their algorithms over time as well as other social media platforms to

[00:09:57] Try and keep users on the platform. So they started

[00:10:00] making it more difficult for users to see

[00:10:03] External links and that absolutely crashed our traffic like it killed a huge amount of that traffic

[00:10:10] Same time we also switched to a new website

[00:10:12] Which really hurt us in terms of our SEO and our performance on Google search

[00:10:17] So we lost around the turn of last year so the beginning of 2023

[00:10:23] You know, we almost went all the way back down to zero traffic again and

[00:10:27] That was really tough. So we hired some new people in especially with

[00:10:33] Experience in generating organic traffic. So Google search traffic

[00:10:37] We put a lot of investment into that in terms of

[00:10:41] Optimizing the website for Google. We re-looked at our guidelines like how do we get that click?

[00:10:46] so thumbnails

[00:10:48] Headlines, etc improving the quality of the articles as well and those changes over the next few months from there

[00:10:56] Helped us to get back up and eclipse. It will be doing before so we then went in the next six months

[00:11:01] We went up to about two million users again a month, but this time

[00:11:05] 50 to 70 percent of it was rather than being from Facebook

[00:11:08] It was from Google search and Google discover

[00:11:11] And now those in the publishing industry would generally know that kind of a hierarchy of quality

[00:11:17] So traffic you're getting from social media tends to be lower traffic people don't still on the website as much

[00:11:22] They don't read as long there probably not as high income or as high engagement or as high intention traffic

[00:11:29] So, you know that Google traffic is a lot better

[00:11:32] But the next challenge that I think we could face is that with SGE

[00:11:36] Which is Google's like generative results if that gets rolled out more widely and the results are very good

[00:11:41] I think it's gonna really hurt a lot of websites search traffic

[00:11:44] Because people just see the answer that they're searching for without having to click through to the site

[00:11:50] So that's something that's happening and I think also, you know social media people are saying to get their news on the platform

[00:11:56] Now they're not clicking on links as much. There's all of these things which are really hurting us a

[00:12:01] Lot of the ad revenues have gone elsewhere gone to social media as well

[00:12:05] You've seen a lot of media companies go bankrupt

[00:12:07] so

[00:12:08] These are the trends that are happening these are the challenges that are coming up for us and I think

[00:12:13] For us and most media companies now we're looking at we have this base of organic traffic

[00:12:18] but

[00:12:19] What we really want to get as much of our traffic to be direct traffic and recurring traffic

[00:12:25] So that's people coming not searching for us but coming to our website because our website is the best and

[00:12:32] First place they go to you know

[00:12:34] And that means that really having to invest in quality content

[00:12:38] authoritative content trustworthy content engaging content

[00:12:41] And those days where you know buzz feed or etc could get huge amounts of traffic from from Facebook or

[00:12:48] Even from Google like those days, you know a dying or numbered and the challenges are very different

[00:12:54] Like it's you know tough for a lot of companies and like it says this way we've seen a lot of them in trouble

[00:12:59] Yeah, so you mentioned social media and online activity was key to the growth

[00:13:05] So what does this growth and online activity indicate about the appetite and the potential of

[00:13:13] The sports fan base in Africa

[00:13:16] If anything the market is smaller than we thought

[00:13:19] And we've kind of hit a plateau of a few million users

[00:13:23] Where we're ahead of a lot of our established competitors

[00:13:26] But I think further growth is is hard and slow and from speaking with other outlets

[00:13:32] They're also finding the same thing with this kind of plateau of users

[00:13:36] Which is a lot less than we've forecast when we initially looked at the market sizing

[00:13:41] So I think there's a few things to say about the growth and appetite sports fan base in Africa

[00:13:46] I think there's a lot of missed understanding around this so

[00:13:51] First thing is that the news market maybe isn't as big as we thought in terms of like having a dedicated news

[00:13:58] platform website

[00:13:59] I think people are more and more getting their news directly from social media

[00:14:04] even if it's

[00:14:06] more prone to

[00:14:08] False news or bias etc. So

[00:14:12] That's how you know most people behave they're getting their news from WhatsApp

[00:14:16] Probably WhatsApp Facebook of the main ones

[00:14:19] Twitter is still very niche, but it's you know, it's there as well as obviously tick tock is growing YouTube

[00:14:24] So I think there's very much an appetite for those things on social media

[00:14:28] How much of an appetite there is on the dedicated, you know media publishing side is a different question

[00:14:33] I think the live score apps is in areas doing really well

[00:14:37] So that live score store for score flash score, you know, they have a very specific use case

[00:14:41] They've got products that are really well tailored to how people who want to place bets

[00:14:46] Use these sites, you know and the information that they want to get in terms of live stats

[00:14:51] Very well, they've got a clear market and I think most of the growth is going away from being growth in like hard news or journalism

[00:14:59] And it's more towards fast news

[00:15:03] But more importantly like banter lifestyle, etc

[00:15:08] Betting tips, you know betting is just a huge drive of the sports media market

[00:15:12] I think without sports betting that probably wouldn't be a sports media industry or sports publishing industry in Africa

[00:15:19] So those are some of the things and I think my final point there is what was that

[00:15:24] We talk a lot in Africa, not just in sports, but in all industries about this kind of the numbers and the demographics

[00:15:30] And we go, oh, you know so many people and there's always young people and therefore there must be an opportunity

[00:15:35] And it's really big and that is the case. I mean everyone watches football

[00:15:39] You've got almost a billion people, you know football fans on the continent

[00:15:43] But actually working out how do you create product like a distinctive product?

[00:15:48] And how do you monetize that as a different case because most people here they want to see the scores or maybe they want to watch the matches

[00:15:56] A lot of those are things that they can get from, you know, live score from BBC, etc.

[00:16:01] So in terms of creating an Africa focused product, there's a lot of work like it's quite difficult to actually find like

[00:16:08] What is that niche and what is the demand actually for and how can you make business out of that?

[00:16:14] Thank you for sharing that James. You touched on a key point in terms of monetizing sports fan bases

[00:16:21] Do you think many sports brands?

[00:16:24] International sports brands

[00:16:25] Understand how to acquire and monetize their African fan base. Yeah, so when it comes to international sports brands

[00:16:33] I think historically most don't really care how to acquire monetized African fan base

[00:16:39] It is starting to change. There are a few

[00:16:43] NBA being one of the obvious examples who are becoming more

[00:16:48] Cognizant of the potential of the African consumer market, you know, I think in those since I've come here both Puma and Adidas

[00:16:55] have set up stores in

[00:16:58] Lagos Nike through one of their distribution pun of also set up a

[00:17:03] Flagship store and I think all three of those have opened in the last two years since I came

[00:17:09] So the ass signs a lot those are still very they're very small markets for those brands

[00:17:15] Economics are very tough units very competitive a lot of people don't have a lot of disposable income to spend on

[00:17:22] You know Nike merchandise for example when you can get a fake one in the market for fraction price

[00:17:27] And I think even with the international brands that we are seeing coming in

[00:17:32] I think most of them from my experience are more

[00:17:36] Concerned about how can we mine Africa's talent and how can we basically get cheap sporting talent rather than

[00:17:43] How can we tap into the audience in Africa?

[00:17:47] Now there are exceptions and that is as I think changing

[00:17:50] And I think it's gonna take another five to ten years before we see brands really start to invest in their African fan bases

[00:17:57] But I'm still I'm not

[00:17:59] Seeing a huge amount and I'm seeing a lot more like focus on talent first rather than fan

[00:18:06] The obvious area the one that is doing very well

[00:18:08] There is monetizing that African fan base sports betting which is you know exploding across the continent, but especially in Nigeria

[00:18:15] Interesting interesting

[00:18:17] Yeah, I think that's a conversation I've had in the past in terms of African sports talent being exported out of the

[00:18:24] continent and what are the pros and cons of that in terms of

[00:18:29] the actual

[00:18:30] skill level and the infrastructure on the continent and how do we go forward to

[00:18:37] potentially develop that area and

[00:18:39] Build our own brands on the continent where we have top-level talent to playing

[00:18:45] So going back to your point in terms of Puma Adidas

[00:18:49] MBA have showed some level of interest in monetizing the African fan base

[00:18:55] In your opinion or in terms of what you see what role do you believe the digital media solutions play in that process?

[00:19:06] I mean obviously I think digital media plays a huge role in

[00:19:12] acquiring customers especially kind of young audiences and

[00:19:17] This varies massively from country to country is to you know in terms of digital penetration rates, etc

[00:19:23] I think there is an important caveat that I think more so than other parts of the world

[00:19:27] I think trust and physical presence are more important in most of our markets. I

[00:19:32] Think trying to build a digital only brand can be very difficult because this

[00:19:38] Depending on the market that there can be a lot of lack of trust

[00:19:41] You know if we take betting this example

[00:19:44] There's constantly new brands come or tech, you know FinTech

[00:19:48] There's constantly new brands coming in and then leaving because they don't have funding or they didn't make a profit and

[00:19:53] I think people can be very wary, but if you have you know a real physical investment

[00:19:58] You know if you're investing in CSR if you have billboards if you have physical offices

[00:20:03] That stuff is actually important for establishing trust

[00:20:08] And I think there's a lot of old school methods here for example print billboards

[00:20:13] sms marketing

[00:20:15] TV ads radio that

[00:20:18] Are still very strong and often underestimated by international digital brands

[00:20:23] Yeah, so you touched on trust and physical appearance being important elements in terms of building brands on the continent

[00:20:32] So what challenges did you face in setting up the digital media platform in terms of post media?

[00:20:38] um

[00:20:39] That's a good question. I think any business that you start

[00:20:43] In Africa and anyone who's operated here knows that this is whole bundle of things that we just put under like operational difficulties

[00:20:52] You know, whether it's traffic or electricity or

[00:20:56] Just somehow no matter how hard you try that it always seems to be

[00:21:01] operational challenges and and I it's it's even hard sometimes to think about

[00:21:06] specifically what it is, but they're there

[00:21:08] um

[00:21:09] I think talent and recruiting is for us and for every business that we've worked with

[00:21:15] I think is the number one challenge like if 80 90 of my work is just revolving around people

[00:21:21] like either managing the ones we already have or you know, and training them or

[00:21:26] Bringing in new people. Um, you know and finding the right people

[00:21:29] So I think with with us specifically what we wanted to do and what we're trying to do is to

[00:21:36] engage like a new generation of um

[00:21:39] Of sports fans. I think when we look at the traditional ways of doing things

[00:21:45] Publishing particular media in particular in in Nigeria and Africa is very traditional

[00:21:49] So, you know, we get people who they've worked at a radio station or tv station for 10 years and they have

[00:21:56] ideas of how things should work based on their training at university 15 years ago or maybe more and

[00:22:04] That's like a very very different to what we're trying to do which is

[00:22:09] kind of next generation media. Um, you know, which is revolve around short form video

[00:22:15] So I think that mindset is really difficult to find people who are

[00:22:19] You know young enough to really grasp that and grasp how this new world of social and social media works

[00:22:24] at the same time who also have the technical skills and

[00:22:28] You know, a lot of people aren't on like LinkedIn for example, so

[00:22:31] you're actually cutting through the noise and

[00:22:34] Finding those people which is can often be very difficult

[00:22:38] Thank you for sharing that so you touched on the day-to-day operational challenges which you do see in

[00:22:44] A large number of African markets or countries and also talent and recruiting have been some of the main challenges

[00:22:52] I guess with overcoming those challenges

[00:22:54] potentially or hopefully comes growth

[00:22:57] So with that growth

[00:22:58] What's some of the key milestones that you've seen during the what I call it recent emergence or evolution of

[00:23:06] African focus sports media

[00:23:09] I think in terms of the changes

[00:23:13] In the industry, I've mentioned about some of these before I touched upon. Um, I think in the past

[00:23:19] um

[00:23:20] publishers

[00:23:22] tended to be very and still are kind of family dominated and very political

[00:23:27] so, you know, you have these big newspapers that are

[00:23:30] You know owned by a family that has various business interests

[00:23:34] And

[00:23:35] It is just part and it may not even be a particularly profitable part of that overall empire

[00:23:40] And you know, they'll often be quite, you know aligned with one party or the other and you know, they rely a lot for

[00:23:46] You know election cycles for that advertising revenue, etc. Etc

[00:23:50] And you know and the quality was quite low again

[00:23:54] It didn't particularly need to be high and a lot of money coming in from betting companies

[00:23:59] Which is fueling that

[00:24:01] Fueling the media industry

[00:24:02] So I think you have you still have a lot of these kind of political giants

[00:24:06] And you know anyone in any of these markets will know who they are in those markets

[00:24:11] Um, I think social media has massively changed that. Um, so, you know people especially younger people

[00:24:18] They're going away from brands and more towards like individual content creators. There's some great

[00:24:23] solo creators, you know in the african sports media space some of them are very

[00:24:28] You know, you've got betting tips to you've got journalists

[00:24:32] You know videographers or you know, tick tock people or x big brother stars who are coming and you know doing sports content

[00:24:38] So I think you know, that's that shift away from brands onto individuals

[00:24:42] Shift away from written and onto visual and specifically short form video

[00:24:47] So I think those are big changes. Um, I think the next one that we're looking at is

[00:24:53] Around AI as well. I think that's going to be massively disruptive and I still think a lot of people are in denial about

[00:24:59] The transformative effect both good and bad on the industry. I think it's going to make a lot of these

[00:25:05] Traditional houses and writers who are still kind of stuck in this old

[00:25:10] Model is going to make a lot of those people redundant and for those that don't adapt

[00:25:14] It could be quite painful

[00:25:16] Both for the companies and the individuals

[00:25:18] And then I think the obvious milestone that we've seen recently is um, you know the afcon which was a massive success

[00:25:25] And I have to admit I you know ate my words a bit with that

[00:25:28] Um, and I think that success came out because of what I was talking about

[00:25:32] It came out because their digital team was on point, you know

[00:25:35] Kaaf have now 8 million tick tock followers

[00:25:39] Which I think is up for about 5 million before the tournament

[00:25:42] They were really good with that they know how to engage their young audience and they've done that

[00:25:47] And I think they also kind of rode this wave of global interest in Africa in african culture

[00:25:53] You know am a piano afro beats and they did that really well and showed how we could take an african

[00:25:59] Sporting event and make it like pop globally

[00:26:01] On digital and I don't think too many other people have done that

[00:26:05] I think that I I want us to be able to do that with post sports

[00:26:08] And I think that savvy players will do that and they will link

[00:26:12] African sports

[00:26:14] Into you know african lifestyle music fashion

[00:26:17] Etc because that stuff is very is is becoming increasingly cool now like it's

[00:26:22] Becoming kind of mainstream or at least invoke with a young audience in uk and america

[00:26:28] Now if we can kind of a sports like join that conversation and go international

[00:26:33] I think that's another trend that I see

[00:26:35] So you've given a great example there in terms of how we can link african sports

[00:26:40] African lifestyle and culture to reach a wider and bigger audience

[00:26:46] So I guess from the growth we've seen recently as you mentioned in terms of the african kubernetes

[00:26:54] Are you surprised by what african sports media has achieved so far?

[00:26:59] um

[00:27:00] I can't say that i'm surprised so far with the exception of african

[00:27:05] I wouldn't say i'm surprised by the achievement so far because

[00:27:09] I think as an industry

[00:27:12] We have underachieved

[00:27:14] I don't think african sports media is an industry is fulfilling its potential

[00:27:20] I think in many ways we are still stuck in the past and still kind of cling to old models and desperately hoping that they work

[00:27:28] So no, I wouldn't say i'm surprised because I think there's so much that's being left on the table

[00:27:33] And not being achieved that could have been or could be in the future

[00:27:37] Interesting. Thank you for showing that James. So you mentioned in terms of

[00:27:41] You feel there's a lot that's being left on the table and not being achieved

[00:27:46] but I guess in a general term you've discussed about the acquisition of 10 million monthly users

[00:27:55] if we fully utilize the potential in terms of how the space operates

[00:28:00] How big do you believe the space can grow to in terms of what you're doing with pool sports?

[00:28:06] The space being sports media. Yes

[00:28:10] um, I mean, I think if you

[00:28:12] Look at what we're doing in a broad sense in terms of consuming sports content

[00:28:17] Um, there's obviously just so much bigger market than any particular

[00:28:22] um, if you look at say super sport on dstv

[00:28:26] I think they have something like 23 million subscribers across Africa mostly in South Africa and Nigeria

[00:28:33] Now, they're the biggest, you know, I think start times. I think it's around 12

[00:28:37] Maybe canal plus 8 million or so, but you know, even if you add those up

[00:28:41] You're looking at a continent of well over a billion people now

[00:28:45] um, you know

[00:28:46] The majority of whom

[00:28:48] Will watch sport and follow international sports at least maybe not their own leaks

[00:28:52] But they follow international sport and they follow their countries

[00:28:56] So that you know, that's an audience of hundreds of millions of people and now we're saying that

[00:29:00] You know all of the pay tv platforms combined only have a few tens of millions

[00:29:05] Um, the same thing if we look at what we're doing in publishing

[00:29:09] You know, if we have you know around say three million monthly uses

[00:29:14] And you know some of the bigger ones

[00:29:17] Cross the content may have more, you know, maybe in the tens in the low tens. Um,

[00:29:22] Again, it's still just a fraction of what what it could be

[00:29:25] I think, you know, social media is probably our strongest

[00:29:28] suit where, you know, we have

[00:29:31] Maybe five or six million followers

[00:29:34] Um across the different platforms, but again, I mean you're talking about a market size that's

[00:29:38] You know in the hundreds of millions of people, you know, it's a nine figure

[00:29:43] space

[00:29:44] And admittedly not and you know, not everyone in Africa is online that they're increasingly coming online

[00:29:49] And for those that do, you know, what are the things that they want to search for if you look at most search terms

[00:29:54] In Nigeria or any African country on on google, you'll find like sports and sports betting dominate those top searches

[00:30:00] So the answer I think is just much bigger than you know, any one brand is claiming at the moment

[00:30:06] How big that is

[00:30:08] Who knows but you're talking like

[00:30:11] 100 million people plus

[00:30:13] That the user would be interested in this kind of content

[00:30:16] So if we move from the African sports media and looking at African sports brands from your perspective

[00:30:25] How do you believe African sports brands can utilize sports media to promote their brands globally

[00:30:33] outside of the continent?

[00:30:35] Um, I think it's a good question because I think there's definitely an opportunity to kind of ride

[00:30:41] The global wave of popularity of

[00:30:43] African culture and I still think as much as the african consumer market is huge in terms of number of people

[00:30:50] It's really tough

[00:30:52] Really expensive to get penetration and the individual buying power is low. So it's the african consumer market

[00:30:57] I think it's still a very long-term play and it's a difficult one

[00:31:00] So I think your question about how do we do it to promote our brands globally is a good one

[00:31:04] Um, I think ways that they can do it

[00:31:08] There's a few things so one like I say is jumping on top of this

[00:31:12] You know trend in music lifestyle, etc. So that may be cross collaborations

[00:31:16] You know, we've seen a lot in in the us particularly, you know, mba is very good at this

[00:31:21] You know, they've had banner boy and tems

[00:31:25] But you know all-star weekend

[00:31:27] In football you've had it was banner boy at the ucl final

[00:31:31] You know, devido at the world cup

[00:31:33] So there's a lot of like opportunity for crossover there, you know, we've seen arsenal do a fair bit with uh

[00:31:39] Odumodu and deklon rice for example, and there was another it was another but I can't remember

[00:31:44] Who it was that you know, there's a lot of these kind of music tie-ups

[00:31:47] You know see fashion

[00:31:49] Times as well. I haven't seen that being exploited as much as it could but it can be you know in terms of kit mashups, etc

[00:31:55] In terms of more lifestyle oriented content, you know about

[00:31:59] Not so much about what are the players doing on the pitch, but what are their lifestyles like like what are their fashion tastes?

[00:32:04] Who are they dating?

[00:32:06] You know, what food do they like to eat like those kind of things are really popular

[00:32:11] There's a lot of content that we can do around those that I think it can kind of propel us

[00:32:16] Internationally, yeah fantastic very interesting and very valid points

[00:32:21] What role do you think the african diaspora can play in this?

[00:32:25] Yeah, I think the recent african and the successor that had can offer

[00:32:31] A template for how the diaspora can help sports on the continent

[00:32:36] I think some of it is as simple as just hyping it up

[00:32:40] Nigerians in particular

[00:32:41] You know and the diaspora I think are very prominent on social media

[00:32:45] You know, Niger, twits is a thing and so if and as we saw during african

[00:32:50] You know, it was you know, I've got a lot of friends in the Nigerian community in London

[00:32:54] But it's like everybody kind of came out and showed up both online and physically like watch parties

[00:33:01] And that makes a big impression because if you know everyone in the diaspora

[00:33:04] You have I think by various estimates between 1.5 and 2.5 million african diaspora in the uk alone

[00:33:10] Um, yeah, I think is around 400 000 Nigerians in the uk first or second generation

[00:33:15] Now if everyone there is tweeting about it or telling their friends or you know going to events

[00:33:21] And you know supporting their team that is a very powerful group of people

[00:33:26] So if they're all lobbying for a certain, you know for teams or brands of african general

[00:33:31] That could really have like a game-changing difference

[00:33:34] I think that that for me is like the big one

[00:33:36] I think sharing on social etc all of all of that stuff

[00:33:40] We could probably talk about, you know, remittances and investing back in the

[00:33:44] Back into the economy in the you know african countries

[00:33:47] I mean that's also a factor, but it's not I think it will come if we can create good

[00:33:53] Business propositions good investment propositions that would do it

[00:33:56] I don't people to be investing back in just because you know, it's charity

[00:34:00] Um, so I think the onus is on on those of us working on the content to create good

[00:34:05] Teeth that they can invest in

[00:34:07] Interesting interesting from your experience. Are you seeing any

[00:34:11] African sports brands that are

[00:34:14] potentially using this as a strategy in terms of engaging with the diaspora to grow their brands

[00:34:21] globally or outside of the continent

[00:34:24] Um, it's a good question. Um, I think there's a few sportswear brands that are doing this and so I think this guy at

[00:34:33] Afra Sports, you know who do a lot of like they call it afri leisure

[00:34:37] So it's like athleisure, you know equipment track suits trainers, etc

[00:34:42] They're manufacturing in Nigeria and you know, they kind of tap into this afro vibes. I really like that stuff

[00:34:48] I have some it's like it's kind of like Nigerian traditional wear but done in a sporty way with sporty materials

[00:34:54] Um, they I think have recently opened up a store in houston

[00:34:58] So, you know, they kind of started in Nigeria and they're going abroad

[00:35:01] You know in east africa you have ender sportswear, which is a canyon company that

[00:35:08] Manufactures running shoes who were acquired earlier this month by by nvh

[00:35:15] So I think there are a lot of you know examples there in the sportswear space of companies that are growing and being acquired

[00:35:22] I think um, there's a few like founded by Africans in europe. For example, like daily paper

[00:35:28] Sula Braham

[00:35:29] Ashlux, I think actually based in the jirah doing you know a lot of cool like africa inspired sportswear

[00:35:36] And so these are the ones like that are kind of mixing sportswear and urban culture or music culture or lifestyle culture

[00:35:43] And there, you know, they're starting within those kind of dialysis for audiences and growing out

[00:35:48] I think one I used a lot as well is um

[00:35:51] And I remember that I really like what they're doing is

[00:35:54] uh sporting legos

[00:35:56] so they were you know, uh

[00:35:58] started by shola at

[00:36:01] Paystack and a few others within the tech space and they've disrupted that very traditional industry of running sports clubs with a very different mindset

[00:36:09] And they've grown a lot quicker than I think I expected them to to be honest. They've done very well

[00:36:14] They've built up a really core fan base of young

[00:36:17] Digitarily literate people they've established a really good digital brand

[00:36:21] And I think again what they're doing is that they're more than really just a sports club

[00:36:25] Like they're actually building a community

[00:36:26] So I think they plan to open a new stadium and

[00:36:29] Members club like on the beach. So it's like a beach club where you can also watch their football games

[00:36:34] Um, and I really like that because again, they're leaning into saying, you know, it's not just about

[00:36:39] Same old sports thing like let's introduce a sense of community. Let's introduce like a digital brand

[00:36:44] They've released a series of comic books as well

[00:36:48] You know, and they've got a big following in the diaspora, which I'm sure at some point they will start monetizing

[00:36:52] More so these are some of the brands that I think are doing

[00:36:56] Doing some interesting things and I'm sure there are plenty more examples that I could come up with

[00:37:01] No, that's brilliant

[00:37:02] So you've given a great example of sports in Lagos and how they've used digital trends to grow their community and brand

[00:37:11] So keeping on the theme of trends

[00:37:14] What trends in africa sports music space are you currently seeing that you're excited about?

[00:37:21] In terms of trends, I think I've mentioned a lot of the ones before it in terms of, you know, the growing predominance of video

[00:37:28] The globalization and the increasing importance of the diaspora in driving the global popularity

[00:37:34] And cross over is between lifestyle and sports. I think that

[00:37:38] Excites me because I'm I'm not coming at this from a hardcore sports

[00:37:43] Fan background. I'm not reading every stat watching every game in full

[00:37:47] I'm kind of like a casual sports fan who was originally a music fan and you know now watches bits of sports here and there

[00:37:54] So those are the big trends and then I also mentioned as well, which I think well

[00:37:58] It's maybe a bit overhyped, but it is going to have a big impact

[00:38:01] I think the final one the big thing that I see and I think this is probably still

[00:38:06] Five to ten years away from really really gathering up steam

[00:38:09] But I'm definitely starting to see a lot more interest in global players. You know, I've had

[00:38:14] global sports

[00:38:16] Publications reaching out to me that normally never cover Africa. You know, we've seen Nike, Adidas Puma on running

[00:38:23] Launch to various extents. We've seen NBA come in. We've seen NFL making some big plays now

[00:38:29] You know La Liga have multiple offices on the continent

[00:38:33] So there is this sense that brands are looking and I think they're first coming for talent

[00:38:38] But they are also looking to activate that fan base and it just feels the last year has been picking up steam

[00:38:45] Thank you for sharing that so moving past trends and looking at the future future of Africa

[00:38:51] How would you see the digital sports media space evolving over the next five years on the continent?

[00:39:00] Um, I think in sports generally as well as more specifically sports media

[00:39:05] I reckon probably five to ten years from now

[00:39:08] With economic development and also maxing out of other markets. I you know, Europe and Asia

[00:39:15] I think five to ten years is one from now is when we'll really start seeing these brands look to Africa and saying

[00:39:20] Hey, we need an Africa strategy. We need an African audience because they're pursuing growth

[00:39:26] Right now. They're still getting growth in western markets, but it's slowing down

[00:39:31] And I think they are going to come to Africa looking for

[00:39:34] more growth

[00:39:37] So and and at that point I think a lot of them rather than because it's a difficult business environment

[00:39:43] Rather than building things up from scratch a lot of them will want to come and acquire companies

[00:39:47] That are already doing things well here. So

[00:39:51] I think whether it's in media or whether it's the sports more general

[00:39:54] The strategy and the opportunity now is like work this stuff out build out

[00:39:59] audiences

[00:40:01] communities

[00:40:02] and brands

[00:40:03] You know the work here on a lean budget and

[00:40:07] In a few years time, there's probably going to be an influx of capital or probably also be a lot of m&a activity

[00:40:12] Um, we are one of these these big companies, you know your img is your premier leads, etc

[00:40:18] um

[00:40:19] We want to make a bigger push for that African audience

[00:40:22] um

[00:40:23] So I think that's the

[00:40:25] That's the play and in terms of evolving again. I've mentioned the trends around AI short form video

[00:40:32] Does all only continue. I think the video one in particular

[00:40:34] I think we're going to see a massive improvement and proliferation of sports

[00:40:39] Short form video content in Africa. There's not a huge amount at the moment. It's and it's not huge quality

[00:40:45] I think we'll start seeing a lot of diaspora getting into that space and raising the game for everyone else

[00:40:50] And we saw a little hint to that at the african

[00:40:52] Thank you for sharing that. I think that's some very

[00:40:56] insightful pieces of information

[00:40:59] Some pieces that I've not really considered but now that you've mentioned it makes perfect sense

[00:41:05] Where do you see yourself? And you know, what work will you be doing in five years time in terms of

[00:41:10] contributing to

[00:41:12] african sports media

[00:41:14] In a personal capacity

[00:41:17] I have

[00:41:18] A couple of things that I am working on. I will be working on over the next few years

[00:41:25] I can't give too many details right now on all of them. I think one is in terms of

[00:41:32] strengthening the

[00:41:34] Information available to senior business leaders. So I think there's a kind of lack of information

[00:41:38] There's a lot of capacity around the market

[00:41:41] So it's quite hard for those looking to get into the market to really access it or to know how to operate

[00:41:47] So I would like to work with those

[00:41:50] I will be working with some of those international brands to help them come into the market

[00:41:55] Um, there's something we do with with post we have worked with a number of these brands

[00:42:01] You know their pr comms digital marketing, etc

[00:42:04] So that's where I see myself working. Um, I think there's also, you know, there's more on the content plays in terms of lifestyle

[00:42:12] sports lifestyle

[00:42:14] Which I can't devote too much detail on

[00:42:17] I think the final point like longer term is

[00:42:21] What I would really love to be able to do is to be able to bring together, you know investors and operators on the ground to

[00:42:27] To launch just some kind of fund or investment vehicle for sports in Africa specifically

[00:42:33] I think that's a few years away from me being able to pull together the necessary funds, etc

[00:42:38] But we've already seen I think the first African sports fund. We've seen some capital deployed

[00:42:44] So now I would I would love to be part of in the future

[00:42:47] Very exciting stuff. Hopefully I'll get to hear more about that in the near future

[00:42:52] But I hope so as well

[00:42:57] As people we often have quotes mantras proverbs or affirmations that keep us going when times are challenging or when times are good

[00:43:04] Do you have one that you can share with us today? James?

[00:43:08] it's not a quote per se, but um

[00:43:11] I say don't maybe don't overthink things but you don't take things to

[00:43:16] You know seriously sometimes just you know have patience and see how things

[00:43:20] Play out sometimes we can't overthink these things and over stress these things or over sweat the small stuff

[00:43:27] Fantastic. Thank you for that James. We've come to the end of today's conversation

[00:43:32] Do you have any closing remarks find a course for action for people who are interested in

[00:43:36] African sports sports media the stuff that you're doing are

[00:43:40] post sports

[00:43:42] I think we've covered everything there. We've covered trends. We've covered history

[00:43:48] Interesting connecting

[00:43:50] Please hit me up semi-dem linkedin is the best place to do that

[00:43:53] You know if you have a brand that's interested in entering the market or you know, you just want to talk about your digital strategy again

[00:43:59] Send me a message. This is all things that we do with post sports. We don't just have the website

[00:44:04] We also have you know full service digital marketing agency

[00:44:07] We've worked with brands like Nike

[00:44:10] NBA NFL

[00:44:11] So do just get in touch send me a DM and I'm happy to talk to anyone and everyone

[00:44:17] Brilliant. Thank you for that James. What a great way to close today's conversation

[00:44:22] Thank you for sharing your experience of navigating the

[00:44:26] complexities or challenges but also the opportunities of the African sports media space

[00:44:32] It's been an absolute pleasure and an insightful conversation

[00:44:35] I'm looking forward to hearing more in terms of how the space develops and the work that you'll be doing through post sports

[00:44:43] Great. Thank you very much. So

[00:44:46] Thank you to everyone who has listened and stay tuned to the podcast

[00:44:50] If you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe share or tell a friend about it

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[00:45:00] Thank you and see you next week for the unlocking africa podcast