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The NBA continues to focus on expanding its footprint overseas.
While it explores a league in Europe, and continues to add international games to its schedule, the NBA now plans to sell franchises in its Basketball Africa League, commissioner Adam Silver said.
At the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Forum in New York last week Silver said the teams are being sold with an opportunity to build a home arena for each of the organizations. The league is selling 12 franchises, which could include both existing BAL teams and new ones.
“We see an amazing opportunity to build the sport there, to build an arena infrastructure,” Silver said.
The BAL was founded in 2019 and played its first season in 2021. It recently completed its fifth season. Africa has become a hotbed for NBA talent as Sixers star Joel Embiid, Pacers forward Pascal Siakam, and Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga all hail from the continent.
Suns rookie Khaman Maluach—a native of South Sudan—played in the BAL before going to college at Duke and Thierry Darlan, who recently became the first G League player to sign with a college, is also a product of the program.
The BAL has a similar structure to the Champions League in European soccer, with 12 teams competing against each other to win their domestic leagues. Those 12 teams existed before the BAL was formed and any new ones would become a permanent part of the league.
Gauging the interest in the franchises—and how much they could sell for—is difficult. Basketball’s popularity in Africa trails soccer and the BAL has had issues with pay discrepancy before despite paying players four-figure salaries. A league spokesperson told Front Office Sports the league plans to start selling the teams in the coming months.
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