Nigeria’s
leading beer brand, Star Lager, today announced a
partnership with the Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL), to be the
first official beer partner of the NPFL.
The event
brought together stakeholders from the Nigerian football industry on Tuesday,
August 23, 2016 to celebrate a major milestone in Nigeria’s football history.
This first
of its kind partnership will commence
from the 2015/2016-football league season and end with the football league
season of 2019/2020.
Commenting on
the partnership during the event, Marketing Director, Nigerian Breweries, Franco
Maria-Maggi said, “We’ll be finding ways to use this unique partnership of the NPFL to
give our consumers more reason to enjoy the local football. Football in Nigeria
and Star Lager have a proud past, a strong present and very bright future in
front of them.”
Chairman of League Management Company, Shehu
Dikko also remarked, saying, “We are
excited about this partnership with Star Lager, and we hope to achieve more
from this with the support of all stakeholders involved. Having Star as a major
sponsor will certainly be the key to a bright future for professional football
league in Nigeria”.
STAR has
consistently been a long-standing supporter of football, from championing the
world cup through its “Shine On Nigeria” campaign to testing the passion, knowledge and skills
of football fans through the Star Super fans game show.
The
partnership is part of Star’s commitment to create numerous platforms to
recognize and reward consumers for their football passion.
Star Football
is Nigeria’s largest football platform, which brings fans together to celebrate
and acknowledge their passion to the beautiful game of football.
An average of 8,000 fans attended games in the 2014/15 seasons,
according to the LMC’s season review. This is the biggest crowd number for
domestic football in Nigeria for more than 15 years and is expected to rise
this year. It is common these days to see families attend local league matches
in their bright club replica jerseys due to the increased security at venues
across the country.
While the win-at-home at-all-cost syndrome is fast becoming a thing
of the past with 31 away wins, the highest in 10 years, the league has become
more competitive as clubs now chase points on the road leading to greater
excitement for the fans, the biggest stakeholders.
The NPFL, like many important leagues across the world, needs big
corporate organizations to support its message of youth empowerment – at least
700 footballers are employed across the 20 club sides in the league.
“This partnership agreement
with Star shows that there is opportunity for corporate Nigeria in our league
and we hope that many more organizations will take advantage of football to
reach their target markets as we continue to build an attractive league”
said LMC Chairman, Shehu Dikko.
However, due to the fact that more than 70 per cent of clubs are
still owned by state governments, player salaries are hampered by the financial
challenges of many state governments across the country. Still, there have been
more positives than negatives in the domestic scene, which has seen brand
impressions grow digitally with increased interest. An average of 500 posts
with 4 million impressions are made about the NPFL on Twitter every weekend
(Keyhole).
It is the reason why STAR Lager Beer, Nigeria’s first indigenous
beer, has taken interest in this growing local success story in order to push
it beyond its current reach.
“We're excited to sign this
agreement with the LMC that sees us become Official Beer Partner of the NPFL
for the next four seasons. It's a partnership that we expect to bring
excitement to Nigerian football and the fans who love the domestic game,” said Marketing Director, Nigeria Breweries, Franco Maria-Maggi.
Since the first STAR lager beer bottle rolled out of the bottling
lines in Lagos brewery in 1949 the brand has been a market leader and was
listed by the African Business magazine in its 100 Most Admired African Brands
in 2015. Star has put its expansive platform to good use in promoting music and
youth lifestyle via projects like STAR Trek, STAR Quest and STAR Mega Jam.
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