Africa’s Uprising Helps The NBA Reach A $1 Billion Valuation

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By CultureBanx Team

  • The NBA’s Basketball Africa League has secured a nearly $1 billion valuation
  • Investors in the BAL  include former NBA players Dikembe Mutombo, Grant Hill, Luol Deng, and Helios Fairfax Partners

The newly launched 12-team Basketball Africa League (BAL) that was formed through a partnership between The NBA and FIBA (The International Basketball Association) has secured a nearly $1 billion valuation. Well-known players such as Cameroon’s Joel Embiid and Pascal Siakam, as well as Sudan’s Bol Bol, are only some of the African stars in the NBA that add up to 13% of the entire international representation in the league. With Africa consumers expected to spend $2 trillion by 2025, just how lucrative will the BAL become for the NBA and its investors?

Why This Matters: Investors in the BAL include former NBA players Dikembe Mutombo, Grant Hill, Luol Deng, and Helios Fairfax Partners, an investment holding company that works with African businesses. Opportunities for the investors and the NBA across the continent are two-fold, because the BAL can serve as another feeder system for basketball players to the NBA, along with the opportunity to grow a league on a continent projected to have to have the world’s largest working-age population of 1.1 billion in 2034, according to We Forum.

Although NBA revenue dropped almost 10% to $7.92 billion last season, according to Forbes, that number is up approximately 35% from 2015 and represents a number slightly lower than its 2018 revenue. Business operations of NBA Africa will be similar to those of NBA China, which launched in 2008 and has an estimated valuation of more than $5 billion, according to Sports Business Daily

What’s Next: Prominent rapper J. Cole is already a BAL player for the Patriots BBC (Rwanda) and the involvement of President Barack Obama is likely to continue sparking interest from North America. NBA Africa aims to expand media rights throughout the continent and establish corporate partnerships, NBA academies, and social initiatives.

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