National Bank of Malawi (NBM) plc has hiked the sponsorship package for Mo626 College Basketball season four to K450 million.
The sponsorship will run for three years which means the Malawi Stock Exchange (MSE) listed bank will be coughing K150 million per year for the tournament competed for by tertiary college students.
This is an increase from last season’s K186 million total sponsorship for the same three year period.
NBM and Basketball Association of Malawi (Basmal) renewed their partnership at NBM Leadership Centre in Blantyre on Wednesday where the Bank’s Marketing and Corporate Affairs Manager, Akossa Hiwa committed that the sponsorship will also see them rehabilitating basketball courts in some colleges.
“The Bank has faith that in supporting College Basketball, it will nurture an atmosphere in the Colleges where the positive values of discipline, determination, endurance, focus, fairness, concentration and most importantly teamwork will blossom and deeply manifest. This is what we advocate for so that we can have responsible youths who leave college to build our economy.
“From what we have seen so far, the Mo626 College Basketball tournament has unearthed the hidden talent that we have in our university students and has been very competitive,” she said.
Basmal vice president, Banthari Banda commended NBM for the sponsorship saying it plays a bigger role in nurturing talents in colleges.
“This is a very big day for us. We thank NBM for this partnership and we promise to keep the partnership forever. Today Basketball has won and we promise to maintain discipline because we know it is one of the factors why NBM chose our sport,” he said.
Victoria Mphangwe, a student at Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS) also hailed NBM saying the Mo626 Basketball tournament has helped Universities to unite.
“Our Universities are now united and we have very good relationships that we created during the last edition. The tournament also helped to unearth talent, and also identified our strengths and weaknesses which improved our level of play even in other competitions,” she said.
The first season of the competition was launched in 2017 at Blantyre Youth Centre (BYC) and was graced by Vice President Saulos Chilima.