NLO seals multi-million naira sponsorship deal, Agara unveils details 

By Olusola Adebayo

The Nationwide League One (NLO) is set to seal its biggest sponsorship deal worth multi-million naira and also announce a partnership with two foreign service providers. 

The sponsorship deal which will run for four (4) years, is record-breaking and a breakthrough for grassroots football development in Nigeria. 

NLO Chairman and ex-Deputy Governor of Nasarawa State Silas Agara, shared more light on the deal.

"We are happy with the several brands that have shown interest in the NLO in the last few months, as we want the NLO to grow to become a global phenomenon as the most successful grassroots football league across Africa, as challenged by NFF President, Ibrahim Musa Gusau 

"One of our partners is a lottery company licensed by the Nigeria Lottery Commission; they will be NLO Title Sponsors. We have agreed on a four-year sponsorship deal. And we shall unveil them on Thursday, March 14, 2024.

Twenty-four hours later, precisely Friday, March 15, the NLO will unveil four of its prospective partners. 

"One of them is a service provider- a Croatian-based sports tracking platform with over 25 million active monthly users worldwide. This is very good for our clubs. They have also mandated the NLO to assist them in bringing on board other leagues in Nigeria.

"No monetary value involved, but on share benefits on developing our league, and we have agreed to work with them.

However, there is another IT firm that has agreed to develop websites for all the NLO clubs, they will also open social media channels for all the clubs as well.

"They will train club officials on how to manage the sites and then commercialize the website and the social media handles to enable the clubs to generate funds to support their clubs.

"The NLO sees this as a good avenue for club development and another source of revenue stream for the clubs in NLO."

  Agara hinted further, 

"Two other technical partners will join the NLO, as they will help to facilitate talent discovery with the use of technology. 

"The nation's third-tier domestic football league sees them as a Development Partner and we have agreed to allow them access to our data. The benefits to NLO are on revenue sharing when the data are being sold, we have a device to monitor what they do with our data."

In a separate development, to expand its reach to a larger audience and passionate followers of the league, the NLO has launched its two (2) channels on Blend TV.