What FIBA World Cup can teach us about Africa's basketball audience 🏀

Did you know ? 🔎 

🏀 Basketball is the third most popular sports across the world, yet unlike other top sports, its World Cup does not generate as much engagement from less-committed fans. ❗️ 

According to a report by Ampere Analysis, 24% of less-committed fans enjoy the FIBA World Cup (against 56% for the NBA).

This year, FIBA switched things up and made all of the games available through its streaming platform Courtside1891.

This year, the competition saw four African teams compete. Out of the four countries represented, audiences in Angola 🇦🇴, Cabo Verde 🇨🇻 and Côte d’Ivoire 🇨🇮 could watch the games on Courtside1891 (and they even had a partnership with AFROBALLERS). In South Sudan, the games were broadcasted through MTN TV, a local streaming app powered by MTN 🇸🇸.

The viewership of Courtside1891 in Africa still represented a small portion of the total global audience during the first round. Such low viewership certainly has several explanations :

📌 Accessibility of the app : Outside of the three mentioned African countries, some of us had to use a VPN to watch the games (talk to my lawyer, not me 😅).

📌 Cost of the app and cost of data : The subscription package for the FIBA WC was $10 for the entire competition, but one must also account for the cost of data which remains one of the highest in the world in Africa (the Worldwide Mobile Data Pricing Report 2022 has confirmed that Africa is the second region with the most expensive data).

🌍 The FIBA World Cup is ongoing but all African teams are officially out of the competition. I’ve had a look at how the teams have faired across social media, and while all teams have gained some momentum online, it is not as significant as one would expect from a global competition :

📲 On Facebook and Instagram:

🇸🇸 South Sudan’s pages followers increased by 12% - their energising story and committed fanbase definitely played a great role!
🇨🇻 Cabo Verde’s numbers increased the most respectively by 17% and 31%
🇨🇮Côte d’Ivoire saw a 13% jump on its IG page.
🇦🇴 🇪🇬 Angola and Egypt gained under 4% on each platform.