Nigeria’s leading Sports Talent, Events and Media Agency created to revive Nigerian Athletics – Making of Champions – is 11!
Having organised some of Nigeria’s biggest Track and Field meets over the years, the past year turned out to be a pivotal one with the unveiling of MTN CHAMPS, the biggest secondary school Athletics showpiece in recent years, inspired by Jamaica’s century long annual tradition.
More than 15,000 Athletes participated in Seasons 1 and 2 of the event, which ran from September 2023 to May 2024, with eight events across seven cities: Benin, Uyo, Ibadan, Abuja, Asaba, Jos and Calabar.
The competition featured over 30 Track and Field disciplines cutting across the sprints, relays, jumps, hurdles and middle distances amongst others, and initially catered to three age categories: Boys’ & Girls’ Cadets (U14), Youth (U17) and Junior (U20) Athletes. A fourth category was introduced for the Seniors (no age restrictions) in Season 2, with the first leg of that edition serving as the African Games Trials in Asaba.
MoC partnered with Roster Athletics, the leading Competition App globally, operating in 18+ Countries & in partnership with World Athletics, for live real-time engagement with Athletes & fans globally for CHAMPS, making it the first time the app was used in Nigeria to transmit live results & team standings on all android & iPhones.
MoC’s flagship event – the MoC Grand Prix – made a return this year with an upgrade after a three-year hiatus. The 4th MoC Grand Prix marked the first time the competition joined the World Athletics Continental Tour as a ‘Challenger’ Event, with Athletes from more than 10 countries showing interest, while the competition recorded participation from outside Africa for the first time since its inception.
The MoC journey began in late 2012 when MoC Founder/CEO Bambo Akani began shooting the feature-length documentary, Making of Champions: “The History” after seeing a country as populous as Nigeria, blessed with so many people of natural athletic ability, return from the London 2012 Olympics with a sum total of ZERO medals – the first time Nigeria had failed to medal at the Olympics since Seoul ’88. Making of Champions: “The History”, is a 75-minute film capturing Nigeria’s full Olympic medal history in Athletics (Track & Field) and lays the foundation for how Nigeria can return to reckoning on the world stage.
In 2014, MoC commenced media coverage of Track and Field events, both on the domestic scene and internationally, kicking off with the National Championships in Calabar, African Championships in Marrakech and Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. We have since travelled across several states in Nigeria and countries around the world, covering five World Championships in the process, the Olympics, and many editions of the African Games and African Championships amongst several other competitions.
In 2015, the company launched Nigeria’s first Athletics Reality TV Show, Top Sprinter, teaming up with Olympic Medallist Judges Deji Aliu, Uchenna Emedolu, Glory Alozie and Francis Obikwelu to find Nigeria’s next generation of Olympians. The quest took them to Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu and Benin, culminating in the establishment of MoC Track Club with six athletes in 2016, and trained by Olympic Medallists Aliu and Alozie. The club grew to more than 30 athletes, most of whom are currently in the US as beneficiaries of track scholarships. Athletes from MoC Track Club have won over 70 Medals nationally and internationally!
In 2016, MoC launched a Student-Athlete Scholarship, the first of its kind in Nigeria, to take care of the training and University education of the best teenage athletes in Nigeria, with the support covering the athletes’ tuition, accommodation, nutrition, healthcare, training and competition costs. Companies ARCO Group, SNEPCo, Niger Delta Exploration and Production (NDEP), Midwestern and Beacon Power Services (BPS) supported by awarding scholarships to athletes of MoC Track Club.
In 2017, MoC once again extended its frontiers by sponsoring the National U18 and U20 Championships, partnering with the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) to successfully host the competition. In 2018, the company went a step further by unveiling the MoC Grand Prix which has since become Nigeria’s biggest annual Athletics competition asides the National Trials and a regular fixture in the AFN calendar.
The 3rd edition of the MoC Grand Prix sponsored by BetKing took the annual event to a new level in 2021 as Athletes qualified automatically for the Olympics for the very first time – Nigeria’s Grace Nwokocha in the women’s 100m and Kenya’s Ferdinand Omanyala in the men’s 100m. Barely two months after hosting the BetKing/3rd MoC Grand Prix, the company went on to organize the inaugural AFN/MoC Invitational to provide athletes with a platform to compete and secure qualification for the Tokyo Olympics.
MoC’s sojourn within the sporting terrain of the country, continent and the world at large has been nothing short of inspiring. Cheers to 11 years of making impact, and to many more of transforming the sporting landscape in Nigeria and beyond.
