{"id":59155,"date":"2025-04-03T20:00:04","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T18:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/more-sport\/156-players-from-record-28-countries-to-compete-in-2025-basketball-africa-league-season-tipping-off-april-5-in-morocco\/"},"modified":"2025-04-03T20:00:04","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T18:00:04","slug":"156-players-from-record-28-countries-to-compete-in-2025-basketball-africa-league-season-tipping-off-april-5-in-morocco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/more-sport\/156-players-from-record-28-countries-to-compete-in-2025-basketball-africa-league-season-tipping-off-april-5-in-morocco\/","title":{"rendered":"156 Players from Record 28 Countries to Compete in 2025 Basketball Africa League Season Tipping off April 5 in Morocco"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"press-body-in\">\n                            <span><br \/>\n                                                            DAKAR, Senegal, April 3, 2025\/APO Group\/ &#8212;<br \/>\n                                                        <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>&#8211; Fans Can Watch Every Game Live on the NBA App (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/4lg5uVc\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/4lg5uVc<\/a><\/em><em>), <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/43E2pIb\" rel=\"noopener\">www.NBA.com<\/a>, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/4iSZqAi\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/BAL.NBA.com<\/a> and the BAL\u2019s YouTube Channel (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/3Eie70G\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/3Eie70G<\/a><\/em><em>); Games Will Reach Fans in 214 Countries and Territories in 17 Languages &#8211;\u00a0<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>&#8211; BAL Will Honor NBA Legend Dikembe Mutombo Throughout the Season &#8211;\u00a0<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p>The Basketball Africa League (BAL) today announced that 156 players from a record 28 countries across five continents will compete in the league\u2019s milestone fifth season, which will tip off on Saturday, April 5 at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Sports Complex in Rabat, Morocco.*\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the season opener, 2023 third-place finisher Stade Malien (Mali) will face 2024 third-place finisher Rivers Hoopers (Nigeria) at 4:00 p.m. GMT. In the second game, home team Fath Union Sport (FUS; Morocco) will take on first-time BAL participant Al Ittihad (Egypt) at 7:00 p.m. GMT.\u00a0 The complete season schedule is available at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/4iTgHJB\" rel=\"noopener\">BAL.NBA.com\/schedule<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The 2025 BAL season will reach 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+, ESPN, FIBA\u2019s digital platform Courtside 1891, NBA TV, Ninety Media Services, SNRT, Tencent Sports, TV5 Monde and livestreaming on the NBA App (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/4lg5uVc\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/4lg5uVc<\/a>),\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/43E2pIb\" rel=\"noopener\">www.NBA.com<\/a>,\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/4iSZqAi\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/BAL.NBA.com<\/a>\u00a0and the BAL\u2019s YouTube Channel (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/3Eie70G\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/3Eie70G<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>The BAL also today announced that the league will honor NBA Legend Dikembe Mutombo throughout the season, including by featuring a \u201cDM55\u201d patch on all player jerseys and select warm-up gear, as well as moments of silence ahead of each conference group phase.\u00a0 The late four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer served as the NBA\u2019s first global ambassador following his retirement in 2009.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Single-game tickets for the games in Rabat are available online at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/3DTTN5T\" rel=\"noopener\">Guichet.com<\/a> and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/3XIJMiG\" rel=\"noopener\">BAL.NBA.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Fans who purchase tickets will also have free access to the BAL Fan Zone at the arena.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>During the 2025 BAL season, each four-team conference will play a 12-game group phase during which each team will face the other three teams in its conference twice. During group phase play, every team will play on every gameday.\u00a0 The Kalahari Conference group phase will take place from April 5 \u2013 Sunday, April 13 in Rabat. The Sahara Conference group phase will take place from Saturday, April 26 \u2013 Sunday, May 4 at the Dakar Arena in Senegal. The Nile Conference group phase will take place from Saturday, May 17 \u2013 Sunday, May 25 at BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda. Eight teams from across the three conferences will travel to Pretoria, South Africa for four seeding games followed by an eight-game, single-elimination playoffs and finals from Friday, June 6 \u2013 Saturday, June 14. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>View 2025 Basketball Africa League Rosters :\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/4iNOUKJ\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/4iNOUKJ<\/a><\/p>\n<hr align=\"left\" size=\"1\" width=\"33%\">\n<div id=\"ftn1\">\n<p><em>*Rosters are subject to change and will be updated in real-time on the team roster pages at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/4iSZqAi\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/BAL.NBA.com<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bal.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/156-players-from-a-record-28-countries-to-compete-in-2025-basketball-africa-league-season-tipping-off-april-5-in-morocco?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DAKAR, Senegal, April 3, 2025\/APO Group\/ &#8212; &#8211; Fans Can Watch Every Game Live on the NBA App (https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/4lg5uVc), www.NBA.com, https:\/\/BAL.NBA.com and the BAL\u2019s YouTube Channel (https:\/\/apo-opa.co\/3Eie70G); Games Will Reach Fans in 214 Countries and Territories in 17 Languages &#8211;\u00a0 &#8211; BAL Will Honor NBA Legend Dikembe Mutombo Throughout the Season &#8211;\u00a0 The Basketball Africa [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/bal.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/210773ba62abd3f","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/bal.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/210773ba62abd3f","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}