New magazine to bridge sports gap in Uganda

In an interview to explain the rationale behind the magazine, Eden Kironde, the editor of Sports Replay said, the main reason for the launch of the magazine was to end the long drought of publications focusing on sports over the last few months.

“For example, the people into lifestyle have African Woman, Daily Monitor, Wedding Magazine, and many others but sports fans have had no magazine of that quality that speaks to them directly,” said Kironde. He observed that the few quality sports magazines on the market are international hence they don't mention anything local. “SR has therefore come to fill that void,” Kironde said.

The magazine contains news about both international and local soccer, rugby, basketball, boxing, and Formula One. Kironde described the magazine as “a mini sports encyclopedia”.

In its debut edition, Sports Replay features an analysis into the resumption of the hotly contested 2008 Premier League Title and a review of other major European leagues. On the local scene, Sports Replay brings to light the tale of the Uganda Cranes' attempt to qualify for the African Cap of Nations, a feat chased in vain since 1972. Extensively covered is an interview with American-based Ugandan boxer, Kassim Ouma, among others.

The magazine's strategy to survive and arouse interest is hinged on its quest to provide the story behind the told story. “Being a monthly, common view is that the daily newspapers often break stories but, there are always so many behind-the-scene issues that go uncovered. Those are the issues SR seeks to bring to the fore,” he explained.

SR's coming is just another that many ardent sports fans have witnessed on the market and it's resilience stands to be tested by time. In the past, sports readers have been exposed to magazines like Sports Digest, and Sports Fever which have since been swept off the shelves because of some financial incompetence and failure to meet the readers' demands.

For quite a while, sports fans have had to get their news via the sports magazines of the daily newspapers including the Daily Monitor's Score, and New Vision's Saturday Sport which are both published on Saturdays. There are also a number of foreign magazines including South Africa's Kick Off and several English Premier League Club's magazines.

Sport Replay, which has kicked off business with only 3,000 copies, believes that its survival will greatly depend on its reputable team which consists of practiced sports journalists with mainstream media experience. “The assurance is also guaranteed by virtue of what SR is bringing on the market, the readers themselves will keep it afloat,” Kironde explains.

But in a market where publications heavily depend on the financial muscle of their owners or publishers, only time will tell if Sport Replay's lifespan reaches beyond its predecessors'.