The Basketball Africa League, or BAL, as it is popularly known, is a premier men’s league played all across Africa. It has gained quite a fan base and is one of the most competitive leagues on the continent.
History
The BAL was founded in 2019 and is co-organized by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) and NBA Africa. NBA commissioner Adam Silver made the announcement during the 2019 All-Star weekend. He stated that 12 teams would be featured after tournaments for qualifications had been played. The NBA also assigned Amadou Gallo Fall as the first president of the BAL.
32 teams participated in the tournaments to qualify for the inaugural season, but the start of the league got postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The first game of the league was played in May 2021 in the Kigali Arena in Kigali, Rwanda. Zamalek from Egypt went on to win the first-ever BAL championship by beating US Monastir.
In the second season, the league expanded to five-team conferences (Sahara and Nile). The games were held in Dakar and Cairo, and the finals at Kigali Arena. In 2024, the Kalahari conference was added.
Format
Each season has 12 teams, which are divided into three conferences and play in a round-robin arrangement. The top two teams and the two best third-ranked teams advance to the playoffs, which is a single-elimination-style tournament that decides the BAL champion.
To decide the teams that qualify for each season, the league has qualifying rounds where national federations from African countries are given the chance to send one club to represent the country. The chosen club is usually the winner of the country’s national league.
There are six teams from predetermined countries that qualify directly from the regular season without playing the qualifiers. These have been Angola, Senegal, Nigeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Rwanda, and Morocco so far. The rest of the teams battle it out for the remaining six positions. In the first round, all participating teams are divided into groups, with the top teams advancing to the Elite 16. Another group stage follows before single-game eliminations are played in the semi-finals and finals.
Kalahari Conference:
Sahara Conference:
Nile Conference:
Qualifiers in both the Sahara and Kalahari conferences were played, ending as recently as 7th May. Al Ittihad Alexandria and US Monastir secured the top positions. The Nile conference games are yet to be played. Matches start on the 17th of this month at the Kigali Arena. Home team Nairobi City Thunder makes its debut as it takes on Rwanda’s APR in the second match of the day at 6:30 pm local time.
Find more on the schedule here.
