{"id":904292,"date":"2026-09-21T16:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T16:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/904292\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T16:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T16:32:11","slug":"nba-advancing-basketball-africa-league-franchise-plans-to-meet-with-african-leaders-during-un-general-assembly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/904292\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA advancing Basketball Africa League franchise plans, to meet with African leaders during UN General Assembly"},"content":{"rendered":"

NBA executives are expected to connect with African government leaders during the United Nations General Assembly this week, sources told SBJ, as the league advances its incremental plan to sell as many as 10 permanent Basketball Africa League franchises<\/a> to private investors.<\/p>\n

Sources said initial bids this past June emanated from markets such as Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa, with multiple offers exceeding $50M — believed to be the largest proposed investments into basketball on the continent. The NBA\u2019s apparent goal during this week\u2019s UN General Assembly in N.Y. that begin Tuesday is to discuss its BAL vision with those government officials across Africa and, afterwards, advance talks with priority bidders.<\/p>\n

In its six-year existence, the BAL has been a caravan-styled league co-operated by NBA Africa and FIBA, with 12 teams from 12 African nations qualifying on an annual basis. But sources said the expectation — as the purchase process evolves this year — is to gradually add permanent franchises starting with the 2027 touring season. The BAL would eventually wind up with 10 privately-owned teams in ensuing years and launch a home-and-away template, with the league\u2019s 11th and 12th teams still qualifying annually.<\/p>\n

According to sources, the sense is that the permanent franchises will consist of teams that have already competed in the BAL; teams that have yet to qualify for the league; or soccer clubs\/brands that will launch first-ever basketball squads. The NBA and FIBA have already hired the investment bank Moelis & Company to manage the purchase process and vet prospective buyers, with sources saying they will prioritize markets with capable arenas and sound development ideas.<\/p>\n

Those sources said the NBA is headed to the franchise model due to sustained BAL growth over the past six years, including 2026 records in attendance, viewership and social media engagement. Specifically, BAL data has shown that over 110,000 fans attended BAL games in the markets of South Africa, Morocco and Rwanda and that BAL contests reached fans in more than 200 countries and territories, including all 54 countries in Africa.<\/p>\n

On the broadcast side, there were 600 million unique viewers across the continent on free OTA broadcasts (+15% year-over-year). The BAL games also drew a 10X year-over-year increase in total watch hours on BAL.NBA.com and the NBA App and 1.1 billion views on social media. The league also had a record 22 commercial and institutional partners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA executives are expected to connect with African government leaders during the United Nations General Assembly this week,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":904293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[461,49,48,77,459,82],"class_list":["post-904292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-international","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/904293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}