TNM brings back Sapota Mapeto in style
For the second year running, Malawi’s premier mobile phone company, in its quest to promote Malawi football in particular and sports in general has re-launched Sapota Mapeto Promotion, a platform that gives Malawian football teams a chance to generate money to aid in the running of their clubs.
Sapota Mapeto is an SMS promotion where soccer lovers send text messages through a designated code in support of their team. The objective of the promotion is to engage football fans in the sport with the TNM SMS service and let them participate beyond just watching the game.
In addition, the promotion helps create excitement for the games and encourage supporters and all TNM customers to be part of the TNM Super League and to give an opportunity to football fans to help their teams financially as many clubs are struggling due to lack of financial sponsorship.
Speaking during the re-launch of the promotion at upper Kamuzu stadium in Blantyre, TNM Public Relations Manager Limbani Nsapato said the mobile company took over the sponsorship of the country’s flagship league at a time when companies were shunning sports sponsorship and despite its investment in the game, many teams continue to wallow in financial crisis as a result of lack of club sponsorship.
“Many teams playing in Super League today lack steady sponsorship which makes running of clubs a tall order. We are a Malawian company and we understand that football is religiously followed in the country. The launch of Sapota Mapeto therefore is meant to provide teams with a platform from where they can generate money to run their clubs. Sapota Mapeto if well utilised can make teams become self-sufficient. All it takes is for clubs to mobilise their supporters to send more SMSs in order to generate more money because the more SMS a team sends, the more funds it generates,” said Nsapato.
The company first launched Sapota Mapeto in June 2013. A total of MK12, 683, 622 was raised during the year from a total of 603 982 SMSs sent through the network. Big Bullets Football Club claimed a lion’s share of total proceeds at K5, 985 693.
“For a team like Big Bullets which claims to have over a million supporters is can survive without sponsorship by merely relying on proceeds from Sapota Mapeto. All it may take is the club encouraging its supporters to send more SMSs,” said Nsapato.
The 2014 Sapota Mapeto Promotion will run from 19th July until the close of the TNM Super League. To make the participation more interesting this time around, special Super League trivia questions will be development for fans to answer and win various prizes which include Samsung TV every four weeks, branded Vuvuzelas and handsets.
All 15 teams in the TNM Super League will be allocated a special code. Fans will be asked to SMS team code to 1515 to register on the database for their team. A database of fans will be created for all the teams in the league.
