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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

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Speaker 2: Polo. It's known as the sport of kings, but in

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Speaker 2: Nigeria it's become the sport of business kings. The polo

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Speaker 2: field provides another forum for business giants to battle, and

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Speaker 2: even government ministers and global giants like Coca Cola are

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Speaker 2: getting in on the act.

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Speaker 3: It's a sport where you can meet people. I think

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Speaker 3: it was the famous Prime Minister Winston Churchill that said

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Speaker 3: polo is a passport to the world.

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Speaker 2: On today's podcast, we'll look at how playing polo has

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Speaker 2: become an essential part of doing business and whether victories

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Speaker 2: on the field are translating to higher profits.

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Speaker 4: And this is money listening on in action, he goes

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Speaker 4: all the way, sixty, taughty, dirty, he does it.

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Speaker 2: I'm Jennifer's Ambasaja and this is the Next Africa Podcast,

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Speaker 2: bringing you one story each week from the continent driving

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Speaker 2: the future of global growth with the context only Bloomberg

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Speaker 2: can provide. Joining me today is Bloomberg's reporter tiwa Adebayo,

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Speaker 2: who is also a polo player. We should note tiwa

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Speaker 2: thanks so much for joining us. Let's just get right

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Speaker 2: into it, talk about how polo became such a big

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Speaker 2: sport in Nigeria.

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Speaker 4: Well, the thing to know about polo in Nigeria is

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Speaker 4: that it's actually almost as old as the country itself.

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Speaker 4: It was brought over by British military personnel. It was

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Speaker 4: first played by the Cavalry. The first match actually happened

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Speaker 4: in Lagos in nineteen oh four. But it's a very

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Speaker 4: big sport and it's played by a lot of individuals.

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Speaker 4: It's growing in Nigeria. There's around twenty seven different polo clubs.

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Speaker 4: There's thirty three different playing fields, from josh Badon to Lagos.

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Speaker 4: The Lagos Polo Club is definitely the eminent club, not

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Speaker 4: just in Nigeria but also in Africa as well. It's

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Speaker 4: where the highest handycap polo tournament in Africa's played. Highest

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Speaker 4: handicap meaning is where the best players, the highest ranked

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Speaker 4: players in the world play. The Lagos Polo Club itself

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Speaker 4: has around four hundred members. Now there's about seven hundred

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Speaker 4: and fifty active players in Nigeria as a whole. So

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Speaker 4: it may come as a surprise to people in the West,

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Speaker 4: perhaps in Europe, that polo is as big and people

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Speaker 4: are as passionate about it in Nigeria and across the

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Speaker 4: continent in Africa as well and Tia.

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Speaker 2: I should admit my knowledge of polo is very limited.

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Speaker 2: I know a bit about it. There was a special

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Speaker 2: on Netflix actually I think it was produced by Printeria

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Speaker 2: and the Duchess, but I don't know much about it.

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Speaker 2: What I do know is that it is quite expensive

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Speaker 2: though for people who do play it. Who is paying

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Speaker 2: for it in some of these clubs in Nigeria.

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Speaker 4: Well, to really get an understanding of who's paying for it,

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Speaker 4: you need to understand a bit about the rules of

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Speaker 4: polo and the culture surrounding the game. So just a

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Speaker 4: little crash course, on every team, there's four players and

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Speaker 4: one of those players is usually someone called the patron,

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Speaker 4: and that person is responsible for funding the team. They

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Speaker 4: pay the tournament entry. They usually own the horses that

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Speaker 4: you play with, or they rent the horses. Sometimes they'll

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Speaker 4: bring in a professional player as well, so they'll pay

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Speaker 4: those fees and they're essentially responsible for making sure it's

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Speaker 4: all paid for and it all goes through. So that's

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Speaker 4: how a lot of it is finance. But there's also

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Speaker 4: the corporate involvement as well, So in Nigeria specifically, there's

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Speaker 4: very large involvement by financial services companies, notably GT Bank

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Speaker 4: in Nigeria, the title sponsor of the Legos International Polo

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Speaker 4: Tournament this year. They've been sponsoring polo tournaments for around

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Speaker 4: eighteen years. You also have Chapel Hill Denim there's another

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Speaker 4: title sponsor. Companies and charities as well use so there's

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Speaker 4: a lot of different sources of funding that go into

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Speaker 4: the sport. But crucially, when I've been speaking to people,

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Speaker 4: what they're saying is that the sponsorship is growing and

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Speaker 4: it's also changing in shape. So it might have started

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Speaker 4: off as these companies financing polo tournaments as a way

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Speaker 4: to entertain their private wealth clients, for example, bringing people

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Speaker 4: to the polo it's usually a long day out and

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Speaker 4: you can have drinks at the bar in between the matches,

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Speaker 4: so it's a good way to entertain corporate clients. But

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Speaker 4: they've moved from doing this to actually sponsoring the tournaments

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Speaker 4: in a more traditional way that you might expect of

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Speaker 4: a football tournament for example, So having their logos up

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Speaker 4: around the polo field and having their branding crucially on

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Speaker 4: the live streams of these polo tournaments. That's another area

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Speaker 4: that the game is expanding into The Lagos International Polo

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Speaker 4: Tournament was streamed on YouTube this year and it has

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Speaker 4: been done for a couple of years. So the sport

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Speaker 4: is expanding, and what I've been told is that these

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Speaker 4: brands are really using it as a visibility platform and

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Speaker 4: they're trying to attach themselves to this label of premium

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Speaker 4: level entertainment and luxury, which is a very lucrative market,

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Speaker 4: especially for the financial services sector.

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Speaker 2: How important is it then for these businesses? I mean

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Speaker 2: you mentioned how it's growing. Clearly they believe they have

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Speaker 2: a client tell that they could tap into. How is

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Speaker 2: it being seen as a business tool for some of

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Speaker 2: these companies.

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Speaker 4: Well, I did a bit of research into this to

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Speaker 4: find out kind of why they put their sponsorship and

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Speaker 4: really their name behind these tournaments and actually GT Bank

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Speaker 4: they've described the Lagos International Polo Tournament played at Lagos

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Speaker 4: Polo Club as a staple in Nigeria's sporting and social

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Speaker 4: calendar and they say they remain committed to driving positive

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Speaker 4: change with it and also the impact and fostering of

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Speaker 4: community of the sport. So it's clear they see a

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Speaker 4: lot of different avenues with which they can grow brand

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Speaker 4: and it's no surprise as well that the clientele that

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Speaker 4: play polo are very useful for them. So just in

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Speaker 4: the Lagos Polo Club alone, in its members it counts

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Speaker 4: the Finance Minister of Nigeria, lat Edgen for example, Cola

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Speaker 4: Kareem famously the CEO of Shoreline. I spoke to him

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Speaker 4: before this recording as well. He actually owns a polo

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Speaker 4: team called Showline Polo, so he described it as a

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Speaker 4: sort of natural extension of his company as it were,

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Speaker 4: He's a polo fanatic, one of the highest ranked players

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Speaker 4: that isn't professional in the country, so it's useful for

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Speaker 4: them to have access to these people. And the way

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Speaker 4: it's been described to me is that if one of

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Speaker 4: these companies were to set up a billboard, for example,

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Speaker 4: on the side of the road, maybe twenty percent of

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Speaker 4: the people that passed that billboard would be relevant the

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Speaker 4: target market that they're trying to reach. But with polo,

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Speaker 4: as the former president of Legos Polo Club Adele told me,

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Speaker 4: they can guarantee really that eighty percent of the clientele

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Speaker 4: will be the people that they're trying to speak to.

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Speaker 4: I spoke to the commercial director of the Africa Polo Network,

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Speaker 4: Mercedi Molasiwa and he told me just how lucrative the

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Speaker 4: sponsorship mark is a polo is.

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Speaker 1: It's modest, but in quantums of millions of let's say

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Speaker 1: South African rands. Because these are private or they're not

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Speaker 1: really that public. I'm giving you an estimation in the

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Speaker 1: you know, anything ranging between three to five million rands

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Speaker 1: South African rands for Netbank. The point out I do

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Speaker 1: want to say is that what we have observed is

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Speaker 1: that once the corporate sponsor is on board, you do

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Speaker 1: see an increasing level of investment in the quality of

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Speaker 1: the tournament experience. With every passing year, the level of

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Speaker 1: investment in the tournament increases and it's visible.

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Speaker 2: And do you stick with us? When we come back,

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Speaker 2: we'll hear more about the songe power role that polo

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Speaker 2: is playing and how it can potentially spill off of

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Speaker 2: the field and into the boardroom.

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Speaker 4: We'll be right back.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back. Today. We're looking at the role polo is

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Speaker 2: playing amongst Nigeria's business elite. Tiwa Atabayo is still with me, Tia,

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Speaker 2: You've been speaking to some of Legos's polo playing community.

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Speaker 2: Talk more about what they were telling you.

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Speaker 4: Well, I had a really fascinating conversation with Cola Kareem,

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Speaker 4: who is the CEO of Shoreline Energy and also the

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Speaker 4: owner of Shoreline Polo. So I asked him basically, what

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Speaker 4: is the business case for Shoreline Polo. Shoreline and it's

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Speaker 4: one of the leading energy and infrastructure companies across Africa,

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Speaker 4: and he says to me that actually the Shoreline Polo

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Speaker 4: team as it were, has kind of always existed. So

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Speaker 4: he plays the sport, his sons play the sport. He

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Speaker 4: mentioned siblings that play it, so it wasn't a sort

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Speaker 4: of surprise to formalize that into a funded, fully funded

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Speaker 4: polo operation. He told me that there's this real association

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Speaker 4: between polo and excellence, and so it's no surprise that

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Speaker 4: he'd want to associate his brand with that. We also

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Speaker 4: spoke a bit about how Polo can act as a

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Speaker 4: bridge between Africa and perhaps countries in the West and

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Speaker 4: even in the Middle East in terms of business links.

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Speaker 4: Cola Kareem has recently been appointed as to the advisory

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Speaker 4: board of British American Tobacco and he said to me

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Speaker 4: that working with these companies outside of Africa, he's able

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Speaker 4: to use Polo as a point of reference and a

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Speaker 4: global platform, as he described it, to bounce off of.

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Speaker 4: So I think it's really interesting at how polo is

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Speaker 4: building links between different countries but also within Africa. I

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Speaker 4: was speaking to Adeleyier, who is the former president of

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Speaker 4: the Lagos Polo Club.

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Speaker 3: It's a sport where you can meet people. I think

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Speaker 3: it was the famous Prime Minister Winston Churchill that said

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Speaker 3: polo is a passport to the world. The Nairobi and

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Speaker 3: Legos Club now have a yearly competition where we go

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Speaker 3: to Nairabia and play and they come to Legos and play,

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Speaker 3: and that alone has fostered social and economical benefits for

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Speaker 3: both sides. We also play the Heritage Cup at Guards

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Speaker 3: in England. The Heritage Cup is based on the Commonwealth

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Speaker 3: teams playing together playing in England, not already not only

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Speaker 3: Foster's Commonwealth relationship, but of course there'll be businesses there

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Speaker 3: as well.

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Speaker 4: So it seems like it's a force that brings people together,

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Speaker 4: as many sports do. And the president of the Polo

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Speaker 4: Africa Polo Network said to me that they see the

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Speaker 4: sport growing into something akin to golf or Formula one

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Speaker 4: for example, a sport that is perhaps targeted at a

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Speaker 4: premium market, but with a very broad appeal as well.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting that you mentioned a game like golf, right.

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Speaker 2: You just take a look at some of the deals

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Speaker 2: that have reportedly been done on the golf course, some

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Speaker 2: of the present and then I want name names that

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Speaker 2: prefer to spend a lot of time on the golf

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Speaker 2: course and the business that has got done historically. Could

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Speaker 2: that now the role that we've seen golf play could

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Speaker 2: pull those step in and sort of fill that void

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Speaker 2: at least in Legos or in some parts of Africa.

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Speaker 4: Well, it does seem to be going that way one

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Speaker 4: because of the clientele, but crucially there is a networking

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Speaker 4: element as well, because it's not just the players that

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Speaker 4: make up the game of polo. To have a polo team,

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Speaker 4: you need an extensive team of grooms to look after

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Speaker 4: the horses. And those are often people who perhaps don't

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Speaker 4: come from those same circles of world leaders and CEOs,

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Speaker 4: but they have a love for horses that is shared

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Speaker 4: between them. For example, Cola Kareem's Shoreline polo team this

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Speaker 4: year have actually been playing with a groom. So that

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Speaker 4: groom the talent was recognized and he was moved up

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Speaker 4: into the team, and I've been speaking to various players

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Speaker 4: throughout the scene who have said to me that they've

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Speaker 4: seen grooms sponsored to complete their master's studies, for example,

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Speaker 4: and then go on to work in financial institutions with

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Speaker 4: their patron and it can definitely change one's life. They

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Speaker 4: can enter into an industry which they may not have

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Speaker 4: been exposed to, and it does remind me of the

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Speaker 4: game of golf. Actually, you hear often about people that

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Speaker 4: were caddies in golf and got speaking to business leaders

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Speaker 4: or portfolio managers and were offered internships. So it seems

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Speaker 4: like there is that same spirit of networking and entrepreneurship

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Speaker 4: that goes on in polo as well as in golf,

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Speaker 4: and it's growing in popularity, especially in Nigeria.

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Speaker 2: Which is why it would make sense for big global

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Speaker 2: giants like Coca Cola and others to get in on this.

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Speaker 4: Right absolutely, Coca Cola has a polo team that plays

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Speaker 4: in Nigeria that bears the Coca Cola branding. Then you

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Speaker 4: have teams like MSD Baby Bear that is owned by

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Speaker 4: the Dan Goto's Cola. Kareem tells me that there is

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Speaker 4: a fierce rivalry between a Shoreline Polo Team and Steve

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Speaker 4: Babybaar obviously two big magnates of the energy sector within Africa.

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Speaker 4: That rivalry definitely spills onto the polo field as well,

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Speaker 4: and he spoke to me about the real desire to

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Speaker 4: win because you're playing with the company's name emblazoned across you.

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Speaker 4: But something else that's really compelling I think about polo

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Speaker 4: is Cola Karine put it to me and said, there's

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Speaker 4: only two things that stop people from playing polo. It's

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Speaker 4: fear and the second one is death. So it's a

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Speaker 4: very dangerous sport. But I'm told that that camaraderie that

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Speaker 4: you build because you have to trust your teammates to

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Speaker 4: such an extent, makes it easier to have dealings in

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Speaker 4: the business world because these are people that you really

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Speaker 4: get to know on a quite an intimate basis and

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Speaker 4: in a very high pressure, intense and often stressful game.

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Speaker 2: I mean, those are two very legitimate reasons to not

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Speaker 2: play this absolutely just saying how competitive are we getting here?

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Speaker 4: It's definitely something that a lot of resources are being

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Speaker 4: being poured into. There is talk about building polo fields

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Speaker 4: in Issamine, just outside Legos, which is going to be

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Speaker 4: a very big tourist area as well. That development's going

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Speaker 4: on there, but they want to as well as growing

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Speaker 4: the tourist attractions, they also want to grow the game

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Speaker 4: of polo alongside that, because it's clear that there's appetite

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Speaker 4: for it to watch the game, to be involved in it,

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Speaker 4: not just people that play it, people that are passionate

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Speaker 4: about horses and passionate about watching too. So you're definitely

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Speaker 4: seeing a very competitive level of the sport. But that

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Speaker 4: is the thing about polo. It's one of the very

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Speaker 4: few sports that you can't pretend to play because at

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Speaker 4: the end of the day you have to get on

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Speaker 4: a horse and go at about thirty miles an hour

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Speaker 4: and also hit a ball at the same time. And

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Speaker 4: I can tell you from experience it's definitely not easy

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Speaker 4: and it's not always the safest, shall we say.

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Speaker 2: And thanks again to Bloomberg's tiwa Adebayo for that reporting.

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Speaker 2: And here's a few other stories we've been following across

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Speaker 2: the region. This week, Sudan's army recaptured the national capital

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Speaker 2: from the Rapid Support Forces militia, a turning point in

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Speaker 2: a two year civil war that's drawn in outside powers

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Speaker 2: and torn the resource rich North African country apart. The

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Speaker 2: advance is a major blow for the RSF, which had

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Speaker 2: seized control of swaths of Khartoum and the rest of

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Speaker 2: the nation after the eruption in April twenty twenty three

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Speaker 2: of a conflict that may have killed as many as

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Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty thousand people. And South Africa, with

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Speaker 2: the help of the World Bank, has a three billion

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Speaker 2: dollar plan to reverse the decline in services and infrastructure

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Speaker 2: in eight of its biggest cities. It will use a

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Speaker 2: one billion dollar loan from the World Bank coupled with

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Speaker 2: two billion of government money to finance grants for cities

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Speaker 2: including Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town that meet targets in

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Speaker 2: providing water, sanitation, electricity, and solid waste processing under a

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Speaker 2: new government program. And you can follow these stories across Bloomberg,

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Speaker 2: including the Next African Newsletter. We'll put a link to

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Speaker 2: that in the show notes. This program was produced by

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Speaker 2: Adrian Bradley. Don't forget to follow and review the show

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Speaker 2: wherever you usually get your podcasts. I'm Jennifer Zabasanja. Thanks

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Speaker 2: as always for listening.