RUDISHA LEADS, OTHERS FOLLOW: Kenyans vote double 800m Olympic champion as most popular sporting personality

Victor Wanyama, who plays for English Premier league club Tottenham Hotspur, is nowhere near being the most popular sports personality among Kenyans.

A recent survey commissioned by Consumer Insight- a Nairobi-based research firm found Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney and Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo twice as popular.

Only 7 per cent of Kenyans interviewed in the poll felt Wanyama was their favourite sporting personality, against 14 per cent for Rooney, Ronaldo and even Barcelona star, Lionel Messi.

“Footballers, especially foreign players, lead in popularity,” the researchers said of the poll conducted in October.

At a monthly salary of about Sh30m at his North London club, Wanyama, who is also the national team Harambee Stars' captain, is possibly Kenya’s most successful sportsman.

Wanyama, who on Saturday helped his club to a 5-0 win over Swansea, however, has eclipsed fellow stars -his elder brother McDonald Mariga, currently playing for Italian Serie B club Latina, and Dennis Oliech.

Mariga made history as the first East African to play and win the European Champions League with Internazionale Milan in 2010, but has since faded from his years of glory.

He was not listed on the list of popular sports personalities on the survey, an indication Kenyans were forgetting about him, fast.

Double Olympic champion David Rudisha is the most popular sporting personality among Kenyans, polling 11 per cent and equal to combined approval of Wanyama and Oliech.

Rudisha is the current 800m word record holder and won his second Olympic gold in this year's games in Rio in August. In 2010, he was named International Association of Athletics Federation Athlete of the Year.

Steeplechase great, Ezekiel Kemboi and Julius Yego – the javelin sensation nicknamed the You Tube Man, come behind Wanyama, at six and five per cent respectively.

Going by the research, more than half of Kenya’s population love football as see it as their most popular sport, which could explain the rise of sport betting firms in Kenya, including Sportpesa.

From the research, three in every four men identified with football, compared to only 31 per cent among women.

Athletics, however, has an equal rating among Kenyans, irrespective of gender. A quarter of the population in either sexes seemed to enjoy watching athletics, mostly on television.

But in a rather interesting finding about the love for football, fans prefer to follow the game on television, but away from home – even though the games are broadcast live through pay-tv stations, including SuperSport.

“One in every two people who follow football on television, watch it away from home,” Consumer Insight reports, noting only a quarter of fans followed the games in bars and clubs.

That finding means football is best enjoyed in groups, since it is considered a communal sport and fans do not necessarily have to go to bars to watch matches.

Among all sports the survey focused on, it was clear rugby fans were most enthusiastic, as they were the most-likely to watch the game live in stadiums.

The typical rugby fan in Kenya is an urban young man below 35 and is from a middle or upper income class.

There is, however, no bias among football lovers, irrespective of their economic background, Consumer Insight found.