The Blind Spot in Kenya’s Draft National Sports Policy: Digital Transformation Requires More Than Digitised Paper

Kenya’s Draft National Sports Policy, 2025 (Policy) deserves commendation. It squarely confronts long-standing governance weaknesses, athlete welfare gaps, institutional fragmentation, and infrastructure deficits that have hindered the growth of sport for decades. It is, by any objective measure, the most ambitious sports policy framework Kenya has produced.

Yet, despite its strengths, the Policy contains a critical blind spot.

While the document repeatedly references “digital transformation” and “data-driven decision-making”, it largely approaches technology as an administrative convenience rather than as core competitive infrastructure. 

In modern sport, technology and data are no longer peripheral tools. They are decisive performance, commercial, and governance assets. As it stands, we are dangerously looking at building a progressive regulatory architecture anchored in analogue logic, while the rest of the world accelerates toward algorithm-powered sport.

Where the Policy gets it right

The Policy makes several important acknowledgements. 

First, it openly concedes that Kenya’s sports ecosystem remains severely under-digitalised. Athletes rarely interact with digital platforms for scouting, performance tracking, or career management. Many federated bodies lack functional websites, counties do not operate digitised facility booking systems, and no interoperable national sports database exists.

Second, the proposed National Sports Integrated Information System (NSIIS), to be housed under the National Sports Regulatory Authority (NSRA), represents a meaningful step toward centralising registration, compliance, and institutional data.

Third, the policy recognises that digitisation can support devolution by enabling county-level digital portals, reducing geographic barriers to participation and registration.

Finally, the inclusion of e-sports and other technology-driven disciplines signals a willingness to engage emerging forms of sport.

These are positive foundations. However, they fall short of what true digital transformation requires.

Digitisation is not digital transformation

The Policy’s central weakness lies in conflating digitising paperwork with transforming how sport is performed, governed, and commercialised.

The document briefly references artificial intelligence, motion capture, biometric monitoring, and augmented reality, yet offers no concrete regulatory or funding mechanisms to embed these technologies within Kenya’s high-performance environment.

There is no mandate that High Performance Centres be equipped with modern performance technology. There is no requirement for federations to employ sports data analysts. No dedicated budget line exists for sports technology research and development. No national sports innovation fund is proposed.

Yet, at an operational level, it is already evident that such systems are not theoretical and are practical tools employed by other countries we compete with in the sports space. Through my work with Afritech Sports Technology & Innovation Group Limited, we deploy athlete-facing and team-level technologies that generate continuous datasets on physical load, movement patterns, cognitive-motor response, technical actions, and tactical positioning. These datasets are translated into coach-friendly dashboards and longitudinal athlete profiles that support objective training design, injury risk management, evidence-based selection, and player development benchmarking.

There are other companies doing the same in the Kenyan ecosystem and this goes on to show that a national athlete performance data ecosystem is achievable. The policy simply does not yet imagine it.

Data beyond compliance — the law already anticipates this

The Policy primarily conceptualises data as a regulatory tool: registration records, compliance status, and funding disbursement reports. Kenya already possesses a strong legal framework governing how personal data should be handled. The Data Protection Act, 2019 establishes principles of lawful, fair, and transparent processing, purpose limitation, data minimisation, security safeguards, and accountability. 

Athlete performance data, including biometric, physiological, and behavioural data, clearly falls within this regime. However, the Policy does not meaningfully integrate these obligations into its vision for digital sport. It thus results in a policy contradiction where the law anticipates a data-driven society, but the Policy does not operationalise it.

Equally, Kenya’s intellectual property framework under the Trademarks Act and the Industrial Property Act already provides mechanisms for protecting brands, patents, utility models, and industrial designs. In a digital sports economy, these laws should underpin ownership of league brands, athlete image rights, digital content, and technology innovations. The Policy, however, does not translate these legal tools into practical sports governance structures.

This omission is not trivial. It exposes athletes and federations to privacy risks, weakens commercialisation of sports content, and discourages innovation. It must also be acknowledged that data protection and intellectual property regimes are technically demanding. Many sports administrators, coaches, and even policymakers do not yet have the capacity to interpret and apply them within sport-specific contexts.

This reality strengthens the case for deliberate capacity-building, which should be led by the government rather than the private sector. 

The unfinished digital sports economy

The Policy acknowledges that online ticketing, streaming, merchandising, and digital fan engagement remain underdeveloped. However, it largely delegates their emergence to the private sector without providing enabling infrastructure or incentives.

In practice, digital sports economies require intentional scaffolding. Automated content generation, data-driven fan engagement tools, smart tournament systems, and digital marketplaces create monetisable assets for clubs, federations, and competitions. Absent a policy framework that actively encourages and de-risks such innovation, Kenya will continue exporting sporting talent while importing the platforms that monetise it.

Private sector engagement requires data

The Policy correctly observes that private sector participation in Kenyan sport remains limited. However, the underlying issue is not simply incentives, but visibility. 

Sponsors and investors require reliable audience metrics, engagement data, and valuation models. The Policy does not mandate the collection or publication of such data, nor does it require broadcasters or digital platforms to share viewership statistics.

A data-blind ecosystem cannot attract data-driven capital.

What a future-oriented Policy should include

In my opinion, and comparative study of the best international sports governance frameworks, we can aim in the future to incorporate:

1. A National Sports Technology and Innovation Directorate
2. Structured capacity-building on data protection and IP for sports stakeholders
3. Mandatory technology standards for High Performance Centres
4. A national athlete performance data ecosystem
5. Clear digital media and commercial rights frameworks
6. A sports intellectual property and anti-piracy code
7. A mobile-first national talent identification platform

These pillars would reposition technology and data as foundational infrastructure rather than optional enhancements.

Conclusion

Kenya’s Draft National Sports Policy, 2025 is a necessary and commendable attempt to fix historic structural failures. It is ethically sound and governance-focused. However, it is not yet technologically ambitious enough.

Many of the solutions to its blind spots already exist within Kenya’s private sector, universities, and innovation community. What is now required is the intentional inclusion of sports technology experts, data scientists, digital platform builders, and technology-focused legal practitioners in the policy finalisation process.

Global sport is now a data race. The nations that win are those that measure best, analyse best, and commercialise best. Kenya is constructing a strong house for its sports ecosystem. But without wiring it for digital power, that house will remain dimly lit in an increasingly illuminated global arena.

If Kenya truly intends to compete in the future of sport, technology and data must move from the margins of policy into its very core. 

Gordon Gogo Ouma, ACIArb is a Kenyan advocate who advises on litigation, sports business, athlete management, implementing AI strategies, and governance. He is the founder of GMA Global Sports and Business, and co-founder of Afritech Sports Technology and Innovation Group.