Earlier there were notable benefactors for soccer clubs but after the oil crisis, they now took the role of sponsors, mostly from among industrialists in the city.
Those who had access to foreign exchange via exports in particular started to take a commanding role.
These days clubs have sponsors only in a collective way as league sponsors, like the NBC Bank for the Premier League as a whole, and Azam Media Limited for the television rights, in which case each club gets a substantial amount of money for the showing of its engagements.
Several Premier League sides are institutional, belonging to either government organs or parastatal organizations, on the condition of there being just one side from such entities. This avoids arranging results by order.
It has taken upwards of 40 years to move from initial sponsorships around 1975 to acceding the company format, first in Simba SC and less conclusively in Young Africans SC, popularly known as Yanga.
The shift has been complicated and its operations nervy and testing as the two major city clubs are anchored in the membership, who see their cards as giving them power in decision making, and there is a wide feeling among them that the technique of football is evenly shared. Each of them can contribute.
Sponsorship was traditionally about winning the Premier League, whose most awaited moment was the city derby, where two such encounters are expected, the home and away events.
These days the scope of club performance is more elevated as intense investments in the two rival sides have uplifted their expectations in the continental tournaments to the Group Stage and beyond.
The quarterfinals were until recently a great achievement and equalling North African teams was dreamy.
Not so at the moment, as the Msimbazi Street side starts to believe that with significant improvement of its side - not in skills but squad depth, having fairly dependable substitutes to the priority first eleven – it can take to the semi-finals, regularly.
Their Jangwani Street rivals and triumphant imitators are under the impression they have a good side already. It reached the final of one CAF club tournament.
All impressions point to Msimbazi Street-based Simba SC out to build a more formidable side than at present, meanwhile as Jangwani Street club is on the verge of starting afresh, losing the technical bench and some key players.
Yet the psychological rule is that when the new season starts, both in the Premier League and in the continental tournament, they will travel by their last season's star.
Chances are that it will be seen to have faded, and then the club leadership will earnestly embark on a rebuilding, a bit late.
There is at least one other club that is seeking to build a properly competitive side, namely Azam FC, while at least one more is a missed opportunity, that is, Geita Gold FC.
The latter is patterned on the Kinondoni Municipal Council (KMC) side rather than being sponsored by the gold mining firm, but as the company only has a mining license and not a 99-year lease on the land, it mines and quits.
Plenty of opportunities for social and economic initiatives miss out due to land shortcomings.
Of late, the Chamazi neighbourhood side, Azam FC, is believed to have registered an even better outfit than in the past year, though it is unclear how it will finish up with its teething coaching problems.
As the pre-season is just starting, and they have a new technical bench lineup, it might still be given time, but many ache to see a proper professional coach with a track record, in the likes of those found with the city rivals. They are dreaming of either a domestic title or more, and a better CAF itinerary.
Azam FC has of late recruited a Senegalese coach and several players come from that country as well, in like manner as Yanga took to hiving off several AS Vita Club players, sharing honours with Simba SC.
Yanga went further afield in West Africa and Simba SC is now collecting some shock targets from Cameroon and Sudan in the wake of the virtual collapse of Al Hilal.
Still, there is an impression that Azam FC stands to look even more cosmopolitan than the other two this year.
A recent appeal by Yanga stalwart and former President Jakaya Kikwete that local players be given more opportunity to feature in the Premier League was in the first place something to be taken for granted, and also questionable.
Usually, when such appeals come up they are seen to be targeting the city archrivals, as it is believed that they form the backbone of the senior national side, Taifa Stars.
That would largely need to be the case but increasingly the federation shows other aims, running Taifa Stars as a club, projecting how young players will finally be cohesive, instead of bringing the best 18 players and fusing them with technique.
Local players will be more plentiful with the poorer Premier League sides, and fewer at the pinnacle.
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