Brad Koepenick, Founder and President of SparkRise, has highlighted storytelling, inventive content material and neighborhood engagement as key drivers of sustainable sports activities and leisure companies.
Speaking on the panel From Talent to Enterprise — Turning African Sport into Sustainable Media & Business on the YORA Summit 2026, Koepenick defined how content material creation can entice audiences, strengthen connections with athletes and create business alternatives.
He cited his involvement with the Arizona Bowl, now often known as the Snoop Dogg Bowl, the place younger individuals create content material and develop tales round athletes to construct curiosity in the occasion.
Koepenick additionally mentioned an academic initiative that brings roughly 200 highschool college students to expertise the occasion whereas exploring science, know-how, engineering, arithmetic and the humanities.
He stated the initiative demonstrates how sports activities could be linked with training, creativity and neighborhood growth.
Reflecting on his work with SparkRise, which focuses on social-impact leisure, Koepenick highlighted alternatives to attach rising creators with wider networks.
He stated a latest go to to Kenya and interactions with native documentary filmmakers had broadened his perspective and opened alternatives for collaboration between African inventive expertise and worldwide networks.
Koepenick pressured that creating Africa’s sports activities trade requires funding past athletes, together with help for content material creators, stronger business partnerships and academic initiatives that join sport with wider financial alternatives.
As the continent continues to develop its sporting expertise, Koepenick’s message identified the necessity to make investments not solely in athletes but in addition in the media, inventive industries and neighborhood partnerships that may flip sporting success into sustainable enterprise alternatives.
