National Basketball Association: Growing Local Economies By Expanding The Game Of Basketball In Africa

The National Basketball Association (NBA) has a long history in Africa and opened its African headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2010, and additional offices in Dakar, Senegal, and Lagos, Nigeria in 2022. The league is committed to expanding efforts to make the game of basketball and the NBA more accessible across the continent.

For the 2022 season, following the establishment of a standalone entity in 2021, NBA Africa expanded its multi year agreement with ESPN Africa to air a record of more than 180 regular-season and playoff games across Africa each season, launched Africa’s first NBA Store in Johannesburg, South Africa, and announced their plans to launch the league’s fourth African office in Cairo, Egypt in early 2023.

The league recently announced the return of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) for its third season, which will be held from March-May, 2023 in Senegal, Egypt and Rwanda.

PARTNERSHIPS

NBA Africa and BAL continue to attract world class marketing partners, including the BAL Foundational Partners Rwanda Development Board (RDB), NIKE, Jordan Brand, and Wilson, alongside NBA Africa’s recent collaborations with ESPN Africa, Afrosport, KFC Africa (Pan-Africa), Africell (Angola), Stanbic Bank (South Sudan), and Maven Developments (Egypt).

IMPACT

The third BAL season is expected to increase revenue in the hospitality industry by bringing tens of thousands of hotel room nights to host cities, boost the local aviation industry, and engage hundreds of young women through the BAL4Her social campaign.

In addition, NFE and the BAL will continue their “Threes for Trees” campaign, an initiative that aims to donate more than 100,000 trees to farmers and non-profit environmental organizations in a number of African countries.

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