Chiefs will now offer a dedicated mobile portal with editorial content and news from the club as well as match schedules, results, statistics, player profiles, quizzes, fun downloads, etc

The mobile portal is a version of Kaizer Chief’s website that is especially fitted for the mobile phone. Fans will also opt in to receive SMS news alerts. In each SMS message there will be a WAP link that the supporter can click to enter into the mobile portal for the full news article and access to the wide variety of content. The address is http://m.kaizerchiefs.com

Important step

Kaizer Motaung, Chairman and Managing Director of Kaizer Chiefs, is very enthusiastic about the new services.

“ We see this as a big opportunity to emphasize our focus on distributing the club content via as many platforms as possible. Kaizer Chiefs has a strong brand in South Africa, and the country also has a very well developed mobile network, so launching a dedicated mobile portal will provide real time and rich news and information to our fans-something they have been anticipating for a long time.”

Jessica Motaung, Marketing Director at Kaizer Chiefs sees several additional aspects:

“Mobile phones are becoming an important part of our everyday life and our fans are increasingly asking for mobile content. We recognise that in Africa, where more people have mobile phones than PCs, the mobile will become the central means of connecting with our fan; hence the launch of our mobile portal. We see this as an important development in the football world: by making football accessible via the greatest number of channels, we believe that we will reach more people and this will enhance our relationship with our fans.

Kaizer Chiefs also believes the mobile portal will turn into an interesting media window for our sponsors. Statistics show that banner ads on mobile portals have up to 10 times higher click rate than banner ads on regular websites. This is a long-term investment for us with respect to building the future value of our rights: as we build traffic and the volume of users on our mobile portal, it will turn into an extremely attractive arena for sponsors, “says Motaung.

Optimal timing and major opportunities

The mobile services will be launched with the technical assistance of Boost Communications. Boost has 8 years of experience from building a wide variety of mobile services and has been involved in a full-scale roll out of similar services for all the football clubs in the Norwegian Premier League, and also recently launched the new mobile portal for major South African newspaper The Times.

The mobile portal will contain editorial content and news from the club as well as match schedules, results, statistics, player profiles, quizzes, fun downloads, sponsor sections etc. In addition Kaizer Chiefs will offer basic SMS services like news updates, score alerts, votes, quizzes, blogs and chatting.

It is also planned to extend the services to offer video clips from goals and other match highlights, along with the possibility of viewing video clips from the club’s everyday routines, training sessions etc.

About Kaizer Chiefs

Kaizer Chiefs is the largest and most successful Club in South Africa with a fan base of more than 14 million fans.

The Kaizer Chiefs Club was founded in Soweto, Johannesburg on the 7 January 1970 by Kaizer Motaung. The Club headquarters is Kaizer Chiefs Village, in Naturena, six kilometres south of Johannesburg.

About Boost Communications

Boost Communications is a leading provider of mobile services, and has 8 years of experiences in helping major brands when taking their content to mobile. Boost delivers mobile services to a large number of soccer clubs, and also has a strong presence within the media sector delivering mobile platforms to brands like Al Jazeera and The Times.