The Connecticut Sun’s Chiney Ogwumike can now add ESPN personality to her ever expanding resume.
This week, it was announced that the 2014 Rookie of the Year and former first overall WNBA Draft pick will be a co-host for ESPN’s SportsCenter for sub-Saharan Africa.
It will be distributed to 19 sub-Saharan nations as part of a pact between ESPN and Econet Media on the Kwese TV platform. Those 19 nations are Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Swaziland, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
This is a wonderful opportunity to combine who I am and what I am passionate about. As a Nigerian-American professional women’s basketball player, and now SportsCenter co-host, I want to inspire and empower rising generations across Africa and the US to pursue their dreams.
–Chiney Ogwumike
She, as well as her sister Nneka, have maintained their African connections. Chiney, even while at Stanford, once interned with the Nigerian government in addition to partaking in a study abroad program in Nigeria.
In 2016, ESPN and Econet announced a multimedia partnership aimed at Africa—including launching an ESPN channel exclusively on the Kwese platform and debuting a KweseESPN website and app earlier this year. Before, ESPN had a primary and an ESPN Classic channel in Africa before they were discontinued in 2013. Kwese currently has exclusive rights to ESPN in the aforementioned pan-African nations.
By: Akiem Bailum (@AkiemBailum on Twitter, Instagram)
