{"id":467258,"date":"2025-10-31T12:24:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T11:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=467258"},"modified":"2025-10-31T12:24:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T11:24:27","slug":"basketball-africa-league-preparing-for-major-evolution-with-12-permanent-franchises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/basketball-africa-league-preparing-for-major-evolution-with-12-permanent-franchises\/","title":{"rendered":"Basketball Africa League preparing for major evolution with 12 permanent franchises"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"1454\" data-end=\"1724\">The <strong data-start=\"1458\" data-end=\"1492\">Basketball Africa League (BAL)<\/strong> is set for its biggest transformation yet \u2014 shifting from a tournament model to a <strong data-start=\"1575\" data-end=\"1606\">12-team professional league<\/strong> with <strong data-start=\"1612\" data-end=\"1636\">permanent franchises<\/strong> and <strong data-start=\"1641\" data-end=\"1668\">state-of-the-art arenas<\/strong>, according to <strong data-start=\"1683\" data-end=\"1721\">NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1726\" data-end=\"1956\">Ten of the teams will hold permanent franchise status, while two at-large spots will remain open each season. Markets like <strong data-start=\"1849\" data-end=\"1858\">Dakar<\/strong>, <strong data-start=\"1860\" data-end=\"1870\">Kigali<\/strong>, <strong data-start=\"1872\" data-end=\"1888\">Johannesburg<\/strong>, <strong data-start=\"1890\" data-end=\"1899\">Lagos<\/strong>, and <strong data-start=\"1905\" data-end=\"1916\">Nairobi<\/strong> are leading candidates to host teams.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1958\" data-end=\"2240\">Following record attendance and viewership in 2025, the BAL has already contributed over <strong data-start=\"2047\" data-end=\"2079\">$250 million to Africa\u2019s GDP<\/strong>, with projections reaching <strong data-start=\"2107\" data-end=\"2131\">$5.4 billion by 2034<\/strong>. Tatum said the new model will \u201cbring stability, infrastructure, and investment in grassroots basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2242\" data-end=\"2402\">Among the potential franchise investors are <strong data-start=\"2286\" data-end=\"2300\">Grant Hill<\/strong>, <strong data-start=\"2302\" data-end=\"2317\">Joakim Noah<\/strong>, <strong data-start=\"2319\" data-end=\"2332\">Luol Deng<\/strong>, and <strong data-start=\"2338\" data-end=\"2376\">former U.S. President Barack Obama<\/strong> through <strong data-start=\"2385\" data-end=\"2399\">NBA Africa<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2404\" data-end=\"2482\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\"><em data-start=\"2404\" data-end=\"2429\">Source: Andscape (ESPN)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Basketball Africa League (BAL) is set for its biggest transformation yet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":467257,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[325,399],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-467258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","category-nba"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/10\/GtbIXBxWQAAl8in.jpg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467258"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=467258"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=467258"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=467258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}