How Sophisticated Is Nigeria Basketball?

By-Bball Naija

There is an African saying that if the knife is thrown up a thousand times, the handle will always hit the ground first. We cannot do things he same way over and over again and expect different results. I am beginning to think that this is one of our major problems in Nigeria sports.

I was reading The Adobe 2015 Digital Trends Briefing when a paragraph caught my attention.

The digital trends briefing is a quarterly digital intelligence briefing which is based on a global survey of more than 6,000 marketing professionals. The report highlights how business development leaders in corporate organisations grow their businesses and stay ahead of competitors.

The paragraph says, “It is no secret that customer experience (CX) has emerged as a key priority for many organisations over the last few years. The emphasis on CX coincides with rising consumer expectations, which has led brands to focus on customer satisfaction or even delight at every touch point in an attempt to foster loyalty.”

One of the respondents that completed the survey said “Everything needs to be about the customer experience. Everything else just represents tools that can be used to achieve that goal”

My question is; if global corporate organisations place this much importance on customer experience as a tool in business development, why are we not doing the same with basketball in Nigeria? Are we saying Nigerian basketball is not that sophisticated or we are not interested in developing basketball?

In basic terms and from a basketball perspective, customer service/customer experience means making it easy, fun, valuable and pleasurable to watch and follow basketball in Nigeria.

So let us ask these basic questions;

1. Will the sport administrators in Nigeria ever see themselves in the same light as the global

corporate organisations?

2. Do the Nigeria Basketball Federation, State Basketball Council and private owners know who

their customers are?

3. Do they know how important these customers are to the growth and development of basketball

in Nigeria.

4. Have they identified the customers’ needs? If not, how do they plan to identify and meet these

needs?

There is no template or one-size-feet-all approach to improving customer experience for basketball in Nigeria. But a good way to start is for sport administrators to understand that the fans are the number one customers and the development of basketball in Nigeria depends largely on them.

One way the NBA is currently enhancing customer experience is the NBA Global Games. As part of  its effort to connect with the fans globally, NBA Global Games 2014-15 now includes a total of nine NBA teams playing seven regular season and preseason games in seven cities in six countries.

The expectation is that turning customer experience into a competitive advantage will not happen overnight. It involves organisations – in our case the NBBF, State Sport Councils and Private Basketball Clubs - recreating themselves and having long term plans.

Who will bell the cat?