Africa: Bal Tipped to Increase Competitiveness of Local Leagues in Africa

28 February 2025
Capital FM (Nairobi)
By Omondi Onyatta

 Basketball Africa League (BAL) president Amadou Fall believes the prestigious tournament will increase competition in local leagues around the continent.

Fall predicts that teams will be motivated to perform better in their respective leagues in order to have a shot at competing at the continental level.

"We will see competition across the leagues as teams organise themselves better to fight for a chance to represent their countries at BAL. We are excited about the momentum the league has created from the first edition and we are keen to build on that as we head to the fifth milestone," he said.

BAL Africa is a continental premier basketball league that was founded in 2019 by the National Basketball Association (NBA).

It features twelves teams from around the continent, seven of which qualify directly whereas the others compete in a qualification process - known as Road to BAL - in order to secure their slot.

This year's edition, set to tip off on April 5 in Rabat, Morocco, will feature six new entrants including Kenya's Nairobi City Thunder (NCT), Cape Verde's Kriol Star, Al Ahli Tripoli (Libya), South Africa's Made by Basketball (MBB), Al Ittihad of Egypt as well as ASC Ville de Dakar (Senegal).

The competition will feature three regular-season group phases and culminate with the playoffs and finals at the SunBet Arena in Pretoria, South Africa in June.

Each conference will play a 12-game group phase during which each team will face the other three teams in its conference twice.

During group phase play, the home team in each country will play on every gameday.

In the season opener, Stade Malien (Mali) will face Rivers Hoopers (Nigeria) at 4:00 p.m. GMT+1. In the second game, home team Fath Union Sport (FUS; Morocco) will take on Al Ittihad (Egypt) at 7:00 p.m. GMT+1.

Single-game tickets for the games in Rabat are available online at Guichet.ma and the following physical locations: Megarama Cinema in Casablanca, Megarama Cinema in Fes and the National Theatre in Rabat.

Fans who purchase tickets will also have free access to the BAL Fan Zone at the arena.

Tickets for the games in Dakar, Senegal are also on sale now at BAL.NBA.com and Bal-teewtickets.com.

Eight teams from across the three conferences will travel to Pretoria for four seeding games followed by an eight-game, single-elimination playoffs and finals from Friday, June 6 - Saturday, June 14.

Additional information about the 2025 BAL season will be announced in the coming weeks.

BAL teams:

Kalahari Conference

Al Ittihad (Egypt)

Fath Union Sport (FUS; Morocco)

Stade Malien (Mali)

Rivers Hoopers (Nigeria)

Sahara conference

ASC Ville de Dakar (Senegal)*

Kriol Star Basketball (Cape Verde)

Petro de Luanda (Angola)

US Monastir (Tunisia)

Nile conference

Al Ahli Tripoli (Libya)

Armée Patriotique Rwandaise Basketball (APR; Rwanda)

Made by Basketball (MBB; South Africa)

Nairobi City Thunder (Kenya)

Read the original article on Capital FM.

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