NBA announces upcoming office in Kenya 🇰🇪🏀

🇰🇪 Kenya has entered the chat and its capital Nairobi will soon become the fifth African city with an NBA presence.

🏀 The NBA is known around all American leagues as the most advanced in its Africa strategy. In our recent show episode, Osi Umenyiora said that the National Football League (NFL) was following the NBA’s blueprint.

🌍 The NBA’s presence in Africa has been engineered by one man whom we all know as the Godfather of African basketball - Amadou Gallo Fall.

Here are key elements of the NBA’s strategy in Africa :

🌱 Grassroots Development
20 years ago, the NBA held its first Basketball Without Borders camp in Johannesburg. In two decades, the league multiplied its efforts to grow the game by organising clinics and camps as well as opening courts across the continent. This grassroots-focused strategy paid off as the talent pool coming from Africa has increased with the years. This past’s season MVP, 🇨🇲 Joel Embiid, was detected on one of the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders camp.

⛹🏾‍♂️ Local Product Development
The NBA took it one step further when they launched the Basketball Africa League, a basketball product dedicated to bringing top entertainment to African fans. The league is NBA’s first international competition and sees 12 teams compete for a title in a three-months long season. To operate the league, the NBA formed a new dedicated entity in 2021 with a consortium of strategic African investors including Helios Investment Partners and Yinka Folawiyo group, as well as former NBA stars Luol Deng and Joakim Noah. The league is broadcasted across Africa and the world by ESPN, CANAL+ Group and beIN MEDIA GROUP.

💸 African corporate partnerships
Traditionally, football takes the biggest piece of the pie when it comes to corporate sponsorships in Africa ⚽️. The NBA is intentional about not only being a gateway for American corporations in Africa, but also becoming a partner for African corporations through lifestyle activations. In 2022, it launched an office in Lagos, Nigeria 🇳🇬 (led by Gbemisola Abudu) and in Cairo, Egypt 🇪🇬 (led by Mohamed Abdel Motaleb). Earlier this year, the Cairo office announced a multi-year partnership with MAVEN Development Group, a real estate leader in the country.