The Basketball Africa League (BAL) has announced the 12 club teams from 12 African countries that will compete in the league’s inaugural season.
The season will kick off on 13 March 2020 at the Dakar Arena in Dakar, Senegal.
Champions from national leagues in six countries – Angola, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia – were guaranteed representation in the inaugural BAL season. The remaining six teams, which come from Algeria, Cameroon, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique and Rwanda, secured their participation through BAL qualifying tournaments conducted by FIBA Africa across the continent in late 2019.
NIKE and Jordan Brand, the BAL’s exclusive on-court outfitter, unveiled the official BAL uniforms. NIKE and Jordan Brand will outfit the league’s 12 teams with official game uniforms, warmup apparel, socks and practice gear, with six teams featured in NIKE and the other six teams in Jordan Brand. The collaboration with NIKE and Jordan Brand marks the BAL’s first partnership.
The inaugural BAL regular season will take place in Cairo (Egypt), Dakar (Senegal), Lagos (Nigeria), Luanda (Angola), Monastir (Tunisia) and Salé (Morocco). Kigali (Rwanda) will host the first-ever BAL Playoffs and Finals.
The BAL will debut with 12 club teams from across Africa divided into two conferences, with each conference playing in three cities. Each team will play five games in the regular season, facing every team in its conference once. The top four teams in each conference will qualify for the single-elimination playoffs in Kigali, Rwanda.
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