BAL to Host Series of Youth Development and Social Impact Events

• The finals of the Basketball Africa League are hosted in Kigali
• A series of events will be held leading to competition week
• Eight teams are competing for the title

The Basketball Africa League (BAL) has announced a series of youth development and social impact events in conjunction with the 2024 Playoffs and Finals, which will take place from Friday, May 24 – Saturday, June 1 at BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda.

On Wednesday, the “BAL Advance” Careers in Sports Workshop brought together players, staff, coaches, and “Future Pros” for career development discussions and networking opportunities.

The Future Pros initiative, which launched this year, helps young professionals from across Africa pursue careers within the sports ecosystem and develop their skills, network and experience in the sports industry by working within one of the 10 departments: business development, digital production, event management, logistics, marketing, marketing partnerships, merchandising, public relations and communications, social responsibility and player programs, and travel and hospitality.

On Saturday, the BAL will once again work with the Imbuto Foundation to celebrate Africa Day with Umuganda community service activation alongside guests and youth from the local basketball community.

This year’s event will take place at the Kimironko Community Court that was unveiled last year in collaboration with the Imbuto Foundation and will include beautifying the space, and planting trees. Umuganda, which is held in Rwanda on the last Saturday of each month, is a day dedicated to community service that supports a variety of public works, including infrastructure development and environmental protection.

BAL and special Olympics host game

On Sunday, together with the Special Olympics they host a unified basketball game at BK Arena featuring Special Olympics ambassadors and athletes. For the second consecutive year, the two are using the power of sports to support people with intellectual disabilities  and help them discover new strengths, abilities, skills, and success.

Part of action at a past BAL tournament

From Tuesday, May 28 – June 1, the league will host its first-ever Pan-African U-23 BAL4HER women’s camp to empower and develop talented young female athletes on-and-off the court.

The five-day camp will bring together 20 of the top U-23 prospects from 14 African countries for on-court development and life-skills programming, including practices and a showcase at Lycée de Kigali, career development workshops and networking sessions, and cultural and community engagement experiences.

On Wednesday, as part of  day, the league will bring together 100 young female professionals interested in careers in sports to take part in a basketball clinic, VIP game-day experience and workshop focused on building careers in the sports industry.

More activities lined up in Kigali

BAL4HER is the league’s platform for advancing gender equity in the African sports ecosystem and celebrating women in the sports industry who serve as role models to young women across the continent.

On Friday, they will collaborate with Shooting Touch for the second consecutive year to host a basketball event featuring 200 young women from the Bugesera community and the U-23 BAL4HER campers.

The campers will serve as coaches during the clinic and support the reproductive health and rights workshop that will happen during the event.

The 2024 Playoffs will feature the top eight teams from the regular season: FUS Rabat Basketball (Morocco), Petro de Luanda (Angola), Al Ahly (Egypt), Al Ahly Ly (Libya), Rivers Hoopers (Nigeria), AS Douanes (Senegal), Cape Town Tigers (South Africa) and US Monastir (Tunisia).

The complete game schedule for the Playoffs and Finals, which is available at BAL.NBA.com, features four seeding games followed by an eight-game, single-elimination playoffs, culminating with the Finals on June 1 at 5pm.

The 2024 season is reaching 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+, NBA TV, SuperSport, Tencent Video, TSN, TV5 Monde, Visionary TV and Voice of America (VOA), and livestreaming on the NBA App.