Big Bullets get 151 607 SMS hits

Such is the luxury of Big Bullets’ huge fan base that the rest of the Super League teams combined, their rivals Mighty Wanderers included, still fall short in the TNM Sapota Mapeto SMS promotion accumulated hits so far.

After two months of the current season’s promotion, Bullets have accumulated 151 607 SMS hits while the combined hits for the rest of the teams are 112 245 which translates to K5.2 million from the total K7.8 million generated.

This was announced on Tuesday during the fourth draw of the promotion held at the league sponsor’s premises in Blantyre. Perhaps this is a further confirmation to their slogan that they are ‘Timu ya Fuko’ (the People’s Team)

The club’s chairperson Kondi Msungama has since taken the opportunity to appeal to the corporate world to use the Bullets brand as the vehicle to market their products.

“The writing is on the wall. The corporate world needs no further evidence that Bullets is the real brand and we are appealing to them to come on board and they will not regret,” said Msungama.

He paid tribute to Bullets faithful for displaying their loyalty and passion through participation in Sapota Mapeto promotion.

“We do not take the supporters efforts to help their team for granted. We also recognise their participation in other drives such as match attendance and club membership. All these are greatly contributing towards the running of the team, in particular the players’ welfare,” said Msungama.

The Bullets chairperson said they intend to step up their commercialisation drive so as to realise their dream of returning to the continental CAF Africa Champions League participation next year.

“We’ll not sit on our laurels, we are dreaming big and apart from courting potential partners, we will step up the campaign to encourage our supporters to take part in their team’s initiatives,” said Msungama.

The Nomads come second with an accumulated hits of 76 380 which is almost half of BB’s feat while Silver Strikers are third on 24 063 hits. Red Lions has the least accumulated hits of 99 SMS’s in the past two months.

The total revenue generated for teams in the past two months is about K7.8 million of which Bullets has made about K5.2 million.

TNM public relations and sponsorship manager Limbani Nsapato appealed to other teams to emulate Bullets and Wanderers in encouraging their followers to take part in the initiative so as to help their teams earn additional funding.

“We have seen efforts being made by individual teams such as Bullets and Wanderers who are making efforts to reach out to their fans to take part in the initiatives.

“Bullets in particular, continue to do well and apart from the fact that they have a huge fan base, their efforts to reach out to the public to support their cause is also paying dividends and this can work for other teams as well,” said Nsapato.

During Wednesday’s draw, a Lilongwe-based Bullets fan Hassam Muhammed Sama emerged the winner of the 42-inch Samsung Plasma TV prize. There were also other consolation prizes such as vuvuzelas, T-shirts and footballs.

“I took part in the promotion just as one way of helping my team Bullets,” said Sama from Lilongwe.