Basketball Africa League Expands Footprint in 2025 Season

The Basketball Africa League (BAL) has announced exciting developments for its milestone fifth season in 2025, marking significant expansion and growth for the league across the African continent.

Morocco Joins BAL Host Countries

In a groundbreaking move, Morocco will host BAL games for the first time next season. The 2025 BAL season will tip off on April 5 at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Sports Complex in Rabat, Morocco. This expansion into a new country demonstrates the league's commitment to growing basketball's presence across Africa and tapping into diverse markets. This addition of Morocco as a host country is expected to bring fresh energy and a new fanbase to the BAL and to further solidify Morocco's position as a pan-African sports powerhouse. It won't be Morocco's first time hosting a BAL event: earlier in January 2024, the country hosted the first BAL combine and the NBA has had several engagements with grassroots basketball through its partnership with phosphate producer and industrial giant OCP.

Pretoria to Host BAL Finals

In another first for the league, the 2025 BAL Finals will be held in Pretoria, South Africa. The playoffs and finals will take place at the SunBet Arena from June 6 to June 14, 2025. This move to South Africa for the season's climax underscores the significant impact that last year's conference had in shifting the BAL's strategy towards African markets with a stronger potential for fan and commercial growth. South Africa is arguably the country where the sports ecosystem is the most developed (for more on South Africa's sports sponsorship ecosystem, read James Torvaney's detailed analysis on the matter on SportsPro Media).

Spotlight on Nairobi

The 2025 BAL season will feature 12 club teams from 12 African countries, playing a total of 48 games across four cities: Rabat, Dakar, Kigali, and Pretoria. This expanded format, with three conferences of four teams each, promises to deliver more exciting matchups and broader representation of African basketball talent. So far, we know the names of ten of the twelve teams qualified for the BAL 2025: reigning champions Petro de Luanda (Angola), Al Ittihad Alexandria (Egypt), US Monastir (Tunisia), ASC Ville de Dakar (Senegal), APR (Rwanda), Rivers Hoopers (Nigeria), FUS Rabat (Morocco), MBB (South Africa), Al Ahli Tripoli (Libya) and Stade Malien (Mali). Two more slots remain and will be decided from November 28th to December 3rd at the Kasarani Stadium. In this qualifying tournament, the Twende Sports-owned Nairobi City Thunder hopes to become the first Kenyan team to qualify for the BAL. Their bid could help solidify the NBA's footprint in the country one year after it inaugurated its new office, led by Michael Finley and only a few months after it announced a partnership with telecoms giant Safaricom for its Jr NBA Program.