By Amaechi Agbo
The Director General of the National Sports commission, NSC, Hon Bukola Olopade has encouraged more states to host the National Sports festival, NSF because of its vast gains to both state and national development.
The DG stated this during his first official Press Conference with journalists covering the 22nd National Sports festival, at the Media centre of the Games in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital.
Olopade who commend the Sporting Media for their reportage of the Games so far, said the gains of hosting an event of this magnitude cannot be correctly quantify in only naira and kobo because it is very huge.
“ You cannot under estimate the power of Sports. Sports deals with everything that has to do with development. From infrastructural development, to capacity building , entertainment and hospitality”.
“This is why you can’t put in Naira and Kobo what the revenue value of this sort of event is. Sports goes to road maintenance, building of new roads, capacity building, feasibility, positioning of not just the country but the host state.#
“To explain it further, how do I aggregate in dollars, the value of that opening ceremony that was seen in more than fifty countries. Does that not announce Ogun state to the World? .It’s not money you can recoup immediately”.
The DG also explained that on the tangible aspect of Sports commerce, small and medium scale businesses are already thriving in the various centres of the Games across the state.
“Over 300 small scale business are operating inside the stadium currently because of the Games. and when you go to Babcock university and it’s surrounding, over a 100 small scale businesses are operating there as well.
“ I also know that in the last ten days, over a million Adire materials have been sold because the Adire sellers are complaining now that they have ran out of stock.
“ Look at the hotels too and one cannot say the profits that have been made by them because of the games. This is why we want to urge more states to host the Festival as it opens a lot of doors for indigent people in the society”, he concluded.
The DG however urge the media to continue to partner with the National Sports Commission and also support the host state in their reportage to deliver a World class Games.
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