HIGH PERFORMANCE CENTRE

tion and acceleration became a global industry and a global science almost as impactful as sports competitions themselves and this simplified access and increased inclusion in sports career paths that would have once been reserved only for those with privilege, private resources and much leisure in the past. “Universities and bioeconomy research and development organizations stepped up to add their expert-value to the highly competitive sports preparation market. This leads us directly to Botswana’s bid, which you see the beginning of today, to offer the best of science and natural circumstances to those global athletes and their entourage of trainers who pursue a leading edge whenever it is offered.” Speaking during the same occasion, the Chancellor of the University of Botswana, Tebelelo Seretse said, “The professionalization of sports means their investability and especially their enormous power to attract viewership in all media. Sports are the world’s most favoured and highly organized spectacles.”

Seretse further explained that sports mobilise more national support than any war and they inform people from a very early age about the practical rewards offered by a disciplined life that structures health and fitness into a monetized asset or a lifelong passion. “The professionalization of sports demands no more and no less than the management of sport through expertise in all its different forms.

This university has been our most reliable source of expertise for forty years now and so it is with great excitement that we watch our alma mater venture into this new role in the sports sectors, which are the biggest entertainment, celebrity and employment creators of all the leisure industries.