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NewsTranscript
00:00 Thank you, thank you, your excellency, President Paul Kagame, ministers, as we say in Africa,
00:10 all protocol observed.
00:14 This is remarkable.
00:15 I hate that this whole week is full of emotions, full of, you know, it comes out that we're
00:24 believing in ourselves and believing in Africa even more, and I want to say a big thank you
00:31 to all our partners.
00:32 I want to say thank you to Andrew.
00:35 You've been incredible in driving this force here.
00:40 Our partners, investors, have been supportive, and to my family, to come here, travel, do
00:51 all these things, it's tough, but we keep grinding and we get the beautiful support
00:58 that we need from our family.
01:01 Kyle, Kunle, you guys are warriors, Levi, everybody that is part of this.
01:09 To RDB, the Bank of Kigali, everybody that has been mentioned today, I want to commend
01:16 you, your excellency, for how people do business here.
01:20 It is first class.
01:25 It's always help.
01:28 It's always how do we solve the problem, which is how things are supposed to be done in this
01:35 world, you know, and we truly, truly appreciate this.
01:41 So yesterday, if you take it in layers, yesterday we built a basketball court at Shalom Center
01:51 and Aga Hoso, and Aga Hoso Shalom, and that's community work, right?
02:02 That's giving back to the community and giving people hope.
02:07 And then last night we were at the opening of the Giants of Africa Festival and you saw
02:14 all these youth, and that's development, right?
02:18 You know, you want to develop these youth, their thinking, how they grow, and what they
02:25 see, and that's another stage.
02:29 Then we come to this stage in Africa, which is the economic value of what we're trying
02:36 to do.
02:38 We have to stop seeing sports as recreation on the continent.
02:44 We have to see it as competition and we have to see it as a business.
02:51 So when His Excellency had this vision of the arena, you think about it, think about
02:59 five years ago and having that vision to build this arena and what comes in the ecosystem
03:08 and then renovating that incredible stadium and then what's around it.
03:13 So when I think of Scotiabank, when I think of LA Life, when we think of all these places
03:19 where we play professional sports, it's a money driver.
03:25 It's revenue generating.
03:27 Money is breeding every day.
03:30 How are we feeding all these people?
03:31 How are we building our economy through sport?
03:35 And I'll talk about through sport a little bit because here is a leader that has given
03:40 us an opportunity with something where, to be honest, we've been put aside.
03:45 We're always put aside in sports, right?
03:49 I bring people that don't know how to manage sports, don't have any intel, vision, don't
03:55 want to study.
03:57 A lot of these people on the continent don't even see it.
04:01 You think about this, just think about this now.
04:04 Accra, Nairobi, and I hate to call it out like this, but I have to.
04:09 Accra, Nairobi, Abidjan, even Johannesburg, Lagos, Lagos, Abidjan, no arena, none.
04:21 Think about it.
04:22 It would be like saying that there's no arena in Miami, Toronto, Chicago, New York, name
04:31 it.
04:33 So this is visionary.
04:34 This is going to be a template of what we want to show on the continent.
04:39 With what my friend Amadou Gallo-Fall is doing as president of the Bar League, which started
04:47 here, the opportunity has been given here by this arena, by this vision of this president
04:55 here.
04:56 And it's what we're talking about.
04:58 We need this.
05:00 We need this on our continent because it's going to make us grow.
05:05 So I'll give you this little example.
05:07 So pardon me, please.
05:09 So our Scotiabank arena, name in rights, changed from Air Canada Center to Scotiabank Arena,
05:19 and we signed this huge deal.
05:21 How many, how many millions?
05:24 This is money we are generating.
05:26 You call our arena now and you want to book a concert or you want to book anything, and
05:33 they tell you maybe you can come in 2026 or 27.
05:38 They give you dates then.
05:41 This is how much business is driving conferences, sports events, hockey events, concerts, everything
05:51 that generates money, food and beverage going on.
05:54 It's incredible.
05:55 Yeah, sweets, hospitality, all those things.
05:59 We don't have them in Africa.
06:01 And we have the people and the talent.
06:05 And I say Africa's biggest jewel, it's our talent.
06:10 If we have the talent, then why can't we have, yeah, we have the education.
06:16 Why can't we have the smarts, the vision to think about this?
06:20 And why do we keep getting neglected in sports?
06:25 Because think about NCAA basketball, universities, they all have arenas.
06:32 Think about how much they are generating with those games, fans, people that come and support.
06:39 Think about the premiership.
06:41 And while we're thinking about all of this, all these leagues are being served now by
06:46 Africans.
06:47 And when I say served, you go to every premiership team, you go to every NCAA team.
06:53 And by the way, you go to every American football team.
06:57 American football is not played here on the continent here.
07:01 You go look behind the jerseys, it's Africans.
07:04 It's African names.
07:06 So what are we doing here?
07:09 What are we doing here?
07:10 And why can't we build it here?
07:12 So we talk about it, but we want to do it.
07:15 And what this man is doing here is doing it.
07:18 It's not talking, it's doing it.
07:20 We want to give opportunity to those youth we all saw yesterday.
07:26 And that's why we've had this thought of Zaria Court and how this is going to become a huge
07:34 ecosystem here.
07:36 And we're going to build revenue, we're going to serve this nation, we're going to build
07:41 sports as we go, we're going to encourage all other businesses, we're going to innovate,
07:47 we're going to have incubations, all those things for us.
07:51 Think about a Nike pop-up store here.
07:54 Why can't we have that?
07:56 Think about an NBA pop-up store here.
07:59 Why can't we have that?
08:00 Think about a Louis Vuitton pop-up store here.
08:03 Why can't we have that?
08:04 Why can't when we finish those games here, we come to restaurants here, we come to sports
08:09 bars here, we hang out, we make money, and we build the economy, and we grow, and we
08:16 encourage.
08:17 That's what we want to do here in Africa because we believe in ourselves, we believe in all
08:23 these smart people, and we believe in the vision of our incredible leader and leaders.
08:30 This is what we're talking about here.
08:32 So without any further ado, I'd like to welcome His Excellency, President Kagame.
08:39 I want to say thank you for giving not only Giants of Africa, but me, Andrew, my family,
08:46 everybody this opportunity.
08:47 Andrew's family, the Bar League that comes over here.
08:51 You've built us in a way that we are absolutely, absolutely proud of, and we can move, talk,
08:58 confident like anything.
09:00 You have no idea.
09:01 [MUSIC PLAYING]