Getting In the Global Game For Good
If you're a smart, practical marketing/communications pro, you'll never wake up one morning and decide to create a sports, music, and culture festival in a foreign country. On a continent where you have no relevant contacts, no sponsors, and no actionable sports credibility. Then again, from as far back as eighth grade, when I dreamed up a week-long girls empowerment event and somehow convinced my junior high principal to let me produce it, I've never been smart or practical when a vision blossoms in my brain. From the moment I read that Barack Obama had purchased a minority stake in the Basketball Africa League, with the intention of bringing social justice and economic opportunity to African youth, the desire to be part of that movement took root.
I knew from personal experience that for young Black men, getting involved with basketball can be a positive motivator. For my non-academically inclined son, making the varsity team and remaining on the squad meant keeping his grades at a certain level, being a good student citizen, and making sure to get enough sleep and eat a healthy diet. By college age, his love for the game had undiminished, he was hosting local radio and public access television shows, landed an internship with the Detroit Pistons, and ultimately earned a great living as a top sales executive with three teams in his beloved NBA.
As a creative consultant, I was tapped by the NBA to create advertising campaigns on subjects from Black History and community outreach to health issues and the importance of voting, all of which increased my awareness of the good basketball can bring.
I was convinced that creating love for the sport could also be a boon to the youth of Africa, a continent whose average age is 19 and whose young population is largely unemployed. A growth in basketball’s popularity might lead to opportunities in broadcasting and sales, sports management, public relations, marketing and advertising and community relations to name a few. That conviction led to the birth of AFROGAMES, a sports and culture festival targeted to young Africans.
The biggest challenge? Basketball is in its infancy on the continent of Africa. Soccer and rugby are king when it comes to popularity with young Africans. How could I use my skills as a communicator to make inroads into an audience that is invested in other sports that are familiar features of everyday life and part of their personal histories? The answer? Tap into the popularity of tech.
Young people tend to adopt new interests and product behavior based on what their dopest (coolest) friends are doing, something I call peer marketing. In the age of Social Media and Smartphone technology, a young African might have thousands of “friends” worldwide, a network unified by Hip Hop music and fashion culture. AFROGAMES is peer marketing on steroids. Our experiential event cast music and fashion in the role of “ dope friends” who were bringing basketball to the Hip-Hop music and fashion culture.
AFROGAMES Johannesburg was only possible because of a powerful mix of its own dope friends. We developed the full-blown vision of an event that involved a pro basketball team competing against the winners of a university-focused 3-on-3 basketball competition, top DJs, and headline music acts, hosted by a star lineup of popular Vee Jays and powered by top music culture and fashion brands.
Our team consisted of world-class communicators known to me from years in the industry. Once Kai Deveraux Lawson, former music exec and Advertising Age 2024 DEI Executive of the Year, Ericka Riggs, former music business rising star and driving force who catapulted to the C-suite by creating enduring Advertising Club of New York hits like Icons, Rockstars and Innovators and capturing the prestigious Nancy Hill Award, respected veteran film producer/director Dana Offenbach and veteran video director/producer Rolando Hudson were onboard, attracting the right partners was the logical next step.
And attract partners our luminaries did. From college marketing guru Karl Carter and his company Snake Nation to the three-time South African National Champion Cape Town Tigers basketball team. Media powerhouse Paramount Africa, parent of MTV Base. Wildly popular Hennessey Back to the City Music Festival. Urban fashion leader Butan, legendary sneaker giant Converse. and beverage big Diageo. Heads were nodding and the words, ”I get it. I like it. Let’s do it.” were spoken over and over again. Suddenly, AFROGAMES the dream became AFROGAMES the reality.
On June 9, after a seemingly endless series of Zoom meetings that sometimes involved as many as three continents, a masterful engagement of social and conventional media and copious amounts of sacrifice, sweat, and elbow grease, I stood on the upper level of our event space and looked at the miraculous success that was the inaugural AFROGAMES: student athletes being rewarded for their discipline and hard work, newly-minted fans appreciating the cultural connection between the music and fashion they love and the sport they have discovered they like. Teens from the township seeing their peers participating as staff, and their favorite MTV personalities an arm’s length away. The air was crackling with the energy of discovery and possibility. The lesson: Never let your vision be limited by those pesky dream killers, practicality and reason. Against the right idea, the right team and the right technology, they don’t stand a chance.
