Johannesburg, South Africa: Supermarket giant SPAR scooped the Sponsor of the Year Award at the prestigious gsport4girls Awards at the Wanderers Club on Thursday night.
SPAR have sponsored women’s sports for the past 34 years. Their two main sponsorships are the SPAR Women’s 10km Challenge, including the SPAR Grand Prix, and South Africa’s premier women’s sport, netball. Over the past three decades, SPAR have also sponsored women’s tennis, women’s lawn bowls, and women’s hockey – outdoor and indoor. For 12 years, SPAR was the title sponsor of the national women’s hockey team and are currently title sponsors of the women’s indoor hockey team.
SPAR sponsored the gsport Awards for a number of years and last year, were co-sponsors, with Telkom, of the World Netball Championships in Cape Town. SPAR initially became involved in women’s sports through the SPAR 10km Challenge, which encourages women of all ages and from all walks of life to get involved in road running. The Challenge started in 1990 and grew from one race a year, in Durban, to include races in Cape Town, Gqeberha, Durban, Tshwane, Pietermaritzburg, Mbombela, and Johannesburg. It is the biggest women only road running series in the world.
Seventeen years ago, the SPAR Women’s Challenge was expanded to include the SPAR Grand Prix, which gives advanced and elite athletes in all age groups the opportunity to compete for points and prize money over five races each year. With prize money of more than R2-million, it is the richest women only road running series in Africa. During the Covid-19 pandemic, when all sports events were cancelled, the government and Athletics South Africa approached SPAR to continue with the SPAR Grand Prix to enable woman athletes to continue to earn a living. SPAR obliged and the only year there were no races was in 2020. The races were run according to strict Covid protocols, and the athletes were delighted to be able to compete.
Three-times SPAR Grand Prix winner and series ambassador Rene Kalmer was thrilled to hear that SPAR had been named Sponsor of the Year.
“SPAR has been a part of my life since my early teens – I won my first SPAR race when I was 14 — and they have done so much to promote women’s road running in all those years,” said Kalmer.
“I am so happy their dedication to women’s sport has been recognized. We are also all very grateful to SPAR for the lifeline they handed us during the pandemic.”
For the past quarter of a century, SPAR has been closely associated with netball, South Africa’s most popular women’s sport in one of the longest-standing sponsorship of a sports federation.
The headline sponsorship of the SPAR Netball Proteas is the longest naming rights sponsorship of a national team in South Africa. The 25-year sponsorship has just been extended to the next Netball World Cup in 2027. SPAR also sponsors the national netball championships.
Cecilia Molokwane, President of Netball South Africa said that “SPAR was good for Netball” and congratulated SPAR on the award. “This recognition given to SPAR at the Momentum GSport Awards needs to be celebrated by all women in the country. It is one of the most fulfilling awards to be presented and Netball South Africa is proud to be associated with SPAR. As we celebrate 30 years of democracy, we must all not forget it was SPAR that for most of these 30 years that believed in women’s sport whilst corporate South Africa were investing into men’s sports. SPAR have fought for the promotion of women and believed in sponsoring women and advocating for the promotion and development of women’s sport. Congratulations SPAR you are a long overdue worthy award winner. Netball South Africa recognise and thank you.”
SPAR National PR, Communications and Sponsorship Manager, Mpudi Maubane said SPAR was humbled by the award. “SPAR is very honoured to have won this prestigious award. We are thankful to each person who took their time to vote for SPAR, it’s a huge recognition. SPAR will continue to promote and support women in sport standing by our commitment to empower, uplift and develop women both on and off the field. SPAR do this almost every day. Together we celebrate every victory big or small which is our motto, the spirit of philanthropy is within us. To all my passionate and dedicated colleagues at the SPAR Group behind this win, I thank-you and keep up the good work.
Maubane also gave praise to Kass Naidoo and Ryk Meiring the founders of gSport for initiating the Momentum gSport Awards and for their continued dedication in giving South African women the recognition they so deserve.
