rs in Senegal Wrestling: A Big Business in Senegal
Nanama Keita Traditional wrestling: Already big business in Senegal
Originally a countryside game practiced by farmers and fishermen as a way of testing their strengths, wresting in Senegal has moved into the city with modern-day wrestlers varying from children into the streets all the way up to celebrity professionals on a wrestling career track.
A centuries-old sport in the West African country, wrestling is now to Senegal much like soccer is to South America. Everyone gathers around any available TV or radio to share in the anticipation and excitement of any wrestling combat.
Senegal’s wrestling began in the villages, when farmers who only worked during the fertile rainy season would pass the time with this tra- ditional African sport which has one main goal - To throw the opponent to the ground by lifting him up and over, usually outside a given area.
During the dry seasons, the farmers would come to the cities looking for work. There they found an audience of people keen to watch and bet on the matches. As the sport gained in popularity, it began to take on ele- ments of martial arts, incorporating boxing, judo and karate, as well as the traditional elements of African wrestling. In the 1990s, Gaston Mben- gue, a renowned Senegalese sports promoter, started to stage matches that allowed bare-fisted fighting.
In one of the only countries in the world where this kind of fighting is le- gal, this modern twist revolutionized the sport and turned it into a multi- million dollar game that now attracts more fans than any other sport, in- cluding football.
With fans flocking to the stadiums - one match can attract up to 80,000 people commercial companies are desperate to get their brands into the ring, from where the images will be beamed on television screens to mil- lions of viewers across the country. The main sponsors are the telecom- munications companies whose attraction to the sports is born out of the fact that it attracts a lot of audience, with a game attracting between half and one billion CFA francs ($1m-2m) in sponsorship money a year.
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