Basketball Africa League Season 5 begins in Morocco
The BAL also announced that the league will honour NBA Legend Dikembe Mutombo throughout the season
The Basketball Africa League (BAL) has announced that 156 players from a record 28 countries across five continents will compete in the league’s milestone fifth season, which will tip off tomorrow at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Sports Complex in Rabat, Morocco.
In the season opener, 2023 third-place finisher Stade Malien (Mali) will face 2024 third-place finisher Rivers Hoopers (Nigeria) at 4 pm. In the second game, home team, Fath Union Sport, will take on first-time BAL participant Al Ittihad (Egypt) in early hours of the night.
This year’s BAL season will reach fans in 214 countries and territories in 17 languages through free-to-air and paid TV broadcast partnerships with the African Union of Broadcasting, American Forces Network (AFN), Canal+, ESPN, FIBA’s digital platform Courtside 1891, NBA TV, Ninety Media Services, SNRT, Tencent Sports, TV5 Monde and live-streaming on the NBA App, NBA.com, BAL.NBA.com and the BAL’s YouTube channel.
The BAL also announced that the league will honour NBA Legend Dikembe Mutombo throughout the season, including by featuring a “DM55” patch on all player jerseys and select warm-up gear, as well as moments of silence ahead of each conference group phase. The late four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer served as the NBA’s first global ambassador following his retirement in 2009.
During the 2025 BAL season, each four-team conference will play a 12-game group phase during which each team will face the other three teams in its conference twice. During group phase play, every team will play on every game day.
The Kalahari Conference group phase will end on April 13 in Rabat while the Sahara Conference group phase will take place from April 26 – May 4 at the Dakar Arena in Senegal.
The Nile Conference group phase will take place from May 17 –May 25 at BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda. Eight teams from across the three conferences will travel to Pretoria, South Africa for four seeding games followed by an eight-game, single-elimination playoffs and finals from June 6 – June 14.
Nile Conference will have Kenyan Champions Nairobi City Thunder, Made by Basketball (South Africa), Al Ahli Tripoli (Libya) and APR (Rwanda).In the “Pool of Death”- Sahara Conference; Giants ASC Ville de Dakar (Senegal) will lead the group alongside former champions Petro de Luanda (Angola), Kriol Star Basketball (Cape Verde) and US Monastir (Tunisia).
In the Kalahari Conference, Fath Union Sport of Morocco, Al Ittihad (Egypt),Rivers Hoopers Basketball Club (Nigeria) and Stade Malien Basketball Club (Mali) occupy the group.
