In 2024, Bay FC became one of the few NWSL teams with significant African representation, after signing six-time African Footballer of the Year Asisat Oshoala of Nigeria, Princess Marfo of Ghana, and Racheal Kundananji of Zambia, whose signing had broken a world transfer fee record. Knowing female African athletes have historically been underrepresented in elite sports, our goal was to showcase our players’ colloquialisms, engage with the overseas fan base to increase our social presence, and enhance American fans’ knowledge of their cultures through an integrated social content campaign.
This was particularly meaningful as 16.8% of Bay FC’s Instagram audience hails from Lagos, Nigeria, and 77% of the Facebook audience is based in Nigeria and Zambia. With African World Heritage Day falling on the same day as a home game, the Club utilized the occasion to spotlight the culture of the African continent as an ode to our stars.
To do so, we set out to produce a ‘mic’ed up’ video to meaningfully uplift the voices of those who often go unheard. In a positive spin off of the ‘mean tweets concept’ and to recognize the devotion of the newfound fans from abroad, Asisat and Racheal were filmed reading out the funniest comments left by their fans back home. In addition, to promote greater awareness on African heritage within the team and local communities, players and fans took part in a ‘question of the day’ style video piece answering trivia questions on the African continent.
We selected Princess as the subject for the mic’ed up episode as she was the least known amongst our three African players. Unfamiliar to Bay Area fans, the piece gave audiences a front row seat to get to know her quiet but delightful personality. Princess was at ease throughout filming, offering playful banter with teammates and cheeky utterances infused with West-African colloquialisms. At one point she tripped in a drill and shouted ‘the devil is at work’, a quizzical response to the untrained ear but several Ghanaian fans quickly pointed out how it was “such an African phrase” in the comments.
To show Nigerian and Zambian fans that the Club has paid attention to their devotion online, the team scanned through hundreds of tweets and comments referencing Asisat and Racheal on our channels and shortlisted options for our second video piece. The main challenge was vetting final selections since nobody in the Club was fluent in Yoruba or Bemba. While there were some online sources for Nigerian pidgin phrases, it was near impossible to ascertain the meaning of Bemba words. One Bay FC team member used her childhood connections from international school to source native speakers, who helped decode which comments were ‘actually funny’ while ruling out anything offensive or inappropriate. Asisat and Racheal couldn’t help but break into laughter throughout filming, amused by the commentary of their fans back home, which made for great reaction shots. We captioned the video with “To our Zam-Naija fans, we love you! Keep doing your thing in the comments!”, ensuring they knew this piece was dedicated to them.
The ’Question of the Day’ video was filmed in two parts - one with Bay FC players during training - and the other with fans on game day. When asked to name five countries in Africa, players were reluctant at first as many did not want to feel embarrassed. With the producer’s encouragement, they answered in small groups, helping each other with clues while getting competitive. Together, they collectively named 17 different countries. To integrate our social storytelling into game day activations, we asked fans to select the correct capitals of Zambia, Nigeria, and Ghana in multiple choice questions at the ‘trivia station’ inside the stadium. Many admitted on camera they had no idea what the correct answer was, but the promise of a free giveaway encouraged a guess. Intercutting between player and fan footage and utilizing awkward pauses to generate moments of humor, the final piece demonstrated how learning more about Africa was an educational and entertaining experience for all.
On game day, we continued to spotlight our African players and their cultures by weaving in match elements into our social coverage. We showed the trivia station at the Fan Fest, promoted our African players' jerseys as 'items of the match' for purchase, and shared playlists to our players' favorite Afrobeats tunes that were also being played in-stadium. Our efforts created a wholistic fan experience from the social feed to the soccer stadium.
The three pieces proved to be a success on social media, garnering a combined 1.7 million views and 108K engagements across platforms. The overwhelmingly positive comments section also proved a successful achievement of our goals to amplify voices, show love, and raise awareness on African heritage.
For Princess’ Mic’ed Up video, a top comment on Instagram was “Princess always looks so quiet and serious on the pitch… it’s so fun to see her!” Many expressed how they formed a deeper connection with Princess after, confirming the Club successfully brought fans closer to one of our African players.
Asisat and Racheal’s video of reading comments from fans gained 3,591 new followers on TikTok overnight. Many responded with emojis of Zambian and Nigerian flags to express their national pride, along with comments directed to the author like, “the last comment was mine and I’m happy the werey admin saw it 😂😂 🇳🇬”, confirming fans were thrilled to be able to directly engage with their favorite players and account admins.
The most common reaction to the trivia video were sentiments like “representation matters,” which showed fans felt seen and their heritage appreciated. Comments like “I’ve always thought the capital city of Nigeria is Lagos, got surprised when I heard Abuja,” showed audiences learned something new in the process, which was also a goal. The combination of stellar metrics and fan reception made the African World Heritage Day content series one of the highest-engaged and impactful series produced by the Bay FC Social team.
