Chairman, Multichoice Nigeria, Mr. Adewunmi Ogunsanya (SAN) has revealed that the company is planning to replicate in other sports what it has done in boxing in the country.
The Pay TV giant has revived Nigerian boxing from decades-long coma through GOtv Boxing Night, which it has sponsored for six years, and the five-year old GOtv Boxing NextGen Search, an initiative to discover young and talented boxers and mold them into professionals.
Ogunsanya disclosed the plan for other sports in an interview with This Day, saying MultiChoice is determined to bring back the glory days by bringing about a paradigm shift that will see attention of Nigerians move to sports from local foreign leagues.
“Boxing happens to be the first step in that direction. Boxing because it was a sport I loved as a young boy and one that I have followed all my life. In fact, as a boy, I fancied myself a boxer. Very soon, we plan to begin building other sports like we are building boxing. The plan is that soon we can replicate what we have done in boxing in other sports like athletics, basketball, volleyball and even handball,” he said.
Ogunsanya added that his personal desire is to see Nigerians pay less attention to foreign leagues and focus more on own local sports and domestic football. “It is possible and we must do it.
We are glad with the impact we have had on boxing, especially the impact we have had on the lives of the boxers. I was very excited to see a video of a boxer on social media saying GOtv Boxing has fired and given life to his entrepreneurial spirit and how he has started a small transport company and owns a number of tricycles. It made me so glad that we are impacting lives so positively. That’s what we want to achieve,” Ogunsanya said.
