Basketball Africa League

Basketball Africa League

File:BasketballAfricaLeague Logo.jpg
Organising body	National Basketball Association (NBA) FIBA
Founded	16 February 2019 (2019-02-16)
First season	2020
Country	List Host countries Angola Egypt Morocco Tunisia Nigeria Senegal Rwanda Represented only Algeria Cameroon Madagascar Mali Mozambique
Confederation	FIBA Africa
Divisions	2
Number of teams	12
President	Amadou Gallo Fall
Website	https://www.thebal.com/
2020 BAL season

The Basketball Africa League (BAL) is Africa's premier men's basketball league scheduled to begin play in March, 2020. The league consists of twelve teams, each qualified through their domestic competition, to similar to the formats of the UEFA Champions League and Africa Basketball League. The league is a joint effort between the National Basketball Association (NBA) and FIBA with sponsorship from Nike, Jordan Brand and Pepsi.

Its inaugural season started with qualifying rounds in October 2019 and the regular season in March 2020. The competition replaces FIBA's Africa Basketball League as the continent's top-tier league.

BAL president, Amadou Gallo Fall, announced at the 2020 NBA All-Star Game Africa Luncheon in Chicago, that the season will tip off on March 13. At the event, Nike and Jordan unveiled the official jerseys for the twelve teams (six of the teams will be outfitted by Nike and the other six by Jordan). The BAL also launched the league's official website and social media accounts.

History

On February 16, 2019 the National Basketball Association and FIBA announced plans to establish a continental professional basketball league. During a press conference at the 2019 NBA All-Star weekend NBA commissioner Adam Silver elaborated on plans to establish the league. Stating the league will feature 12 teams after qualification tournaments late in 2019. Countries announced that could possibly host a team include; Angola, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia. Silver also hinted at the involvement of former U.S. president Barack Obama in an unspecified role. In May 2019, Amadou Gallo Fall was assigned the first president of the BAL by the NBA. In September 2019, BAL announced the venues and cities for the inaugural season, which included a Final Four played in the Kigali Arena in Kigali, Rwanda.

On 15 October 2019, the qualifying tournaments for the inaugural season began, with teams from 32 African countries participating. On 3 March 2020, the BAL announced it was postponing its season due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Qualification

Main article: BAL Qualifying Tournaments

Comparable to the UEFA Champions League in association football, the competition has qualifying rounds to determine which teams play in each season. National federations from African countries will each be given the opportunity to send one representing club, usually the national champions. In the BAL Qualifying Tournaments, teams play each other in groups for six remaining spots in the BAL regular season.

Six teams from six countries qualify directly for the regular season to make a total of twelve teams.

Format

Kigali

Cairo

Luanda

Dakar

Lagos

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Venues of the inaugural BAL season.

In its inaugural season, the BAL will consist of twelve teams. In the regular season, the twelve teams are divided in two conference in which they play five games each. The top three teams from each conference advance to the Super 6. In the Super 6, all teams play in a round-robin competition to determine the four teams that qualify for the final four. The final four is a single-elimination tournament which decides the BAL champion.

Player rules

Each club participating in the BAL regular season is restricted to having four foreign players only, which means it has to have at least 8 local players on its roster. Two out of four foreign players have to be from an African country as well.

Teams

These are the 12 teams for the 2020 BAL season:

Team	City, Country	National league	National titles	Founded	BAL appearance
AS Douanes	Dakar, Senegal	Nationale 1	9	1980	Debut
AS Police	Bamako, Mali	Malian Division I	1		Debut
AS Salé	Salé, Morocco	Division Excellence	7	1928	Debut
FAP	Yaoundé, Cameroon	Elite Messieurs	0		Debut
Ferroviário de Maputo	Maputo, Mozambique	Mozambican Division I	8		Debut
GNBC	Vakinankaratra, Madagascar	Malagasy N1A	2		Debut
GS Pétroliers	Algiers, Algeria	Algerian Basketball Championship	20	1921	Debut
Patriots	Kigali, Rwanda	National Basketball League	4	2014	Debut
Petro de Luanda	Luanda, Angola	Angolan Basketball League	13	1980	Debut
Rivers Hoopers	Port Harcourt, Nigeria	Nigerian Premier League	3	2009	Debut
US Monastir	Monastir, Tunisia	Championnat National A	4	1923	Debut
Zamalek	Giza, Egypt	Super League	14	1911	Debut