Basketball Africa League Prepares for 2024 Season
Five new teams and three new countries are among the 12 club teams from 12 countries competing
Posted On: February 21, 2024 By :The Basketball Africa League has announced that five new teams and three new countries are among the 12 teams from 12 countries that will compete in the 2024 season, which will tip off on March 9 at SunBet Arena in Pretoria, South Africa.
The fourth BAL season will feature 48 games in Pretoria; Cairo; Dakar; and Kigali, Rwanda, marking the first BAL games in South Africa and the first time the league will play games in four countries. The Basketball Africa League is a partnership between FIBA and NBA Africa and is the NBA’s first collaboration to operate a league outside North America.
The 12 teams have been divided into three conferences of four teams each. Seven teams have competed in the BAL before, two of which — Petro de Luanda (Angola) and US Monastir (Tunisia) — will be competing for a record fourth season. Five teams are making their BAL debut, including teams from Burundi, Central African Republic and Libya.
Each conference will play a 12-game group phase during which each team will face the other three teams in its conference twice. New this season, the home team in each market will play on every game day, including on the weekends.
The inaugural Kalahari Conference group phase will take place from March 9–17 at the SunBet Arena in Pretoria. The Nile Conference group phase will be from April 19–27 at Hassan Mostafa Indoor Sports Complex in Cairo. The Sahara Conference group phase will take place from May 4–12 at the Dakar Arena in Dakar.
The top two teams from each conference and the top two third-place teams from across the three conferences will travel to BK Arena in Kigali for four seeding games followed by single-elimination playoffs and finals from May 24 through June 1.
Teams in Angola, Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Tunisia earned participation in the 2024 BAL season by winning their respective national leagues. The remaining six teams, which come from Burundi, Central African Republic, Libya, Morocco, South Africa and Uganda, secured spots through qualifying tournaments conducted by FIBA Africa across the continent from October to November 2023.
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