Unlocking the Business of Basketball NBA Africa’s Expansion, Media Rights & Global Reach

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0:31Such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A new year doesn't ask us to become someone new. It invites us back home to ourselves. I'm Mike Della Rocha, host of Sacred Lessons, a space for men to pause, reflect, and heal.

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2:38PNC Bank, National Association, member FDIC. You said your husband was up at 3 in the morning watching the NBA. I'm going to tell you something. That was me last night. It'll probably be me tonight. New York is playing tonight. But it got me to thinking about media rights and revenue streams. And so for the BAL, is there a Nick fan? Is it a traditional model where it's media rights, it's merchandising, it's tourism? How is it structured here and what's the plan for scalability for that? Thank you. So mainly four ways that leagues like ours can monetize. and I think the more common one for Africa and for our league is sponsorship and marketing partnerships and that's where you see some of the partnerships we have here ServiceNow, Visit Rwanda, Afrika Zimbak and Rwanda Air.

3:34So yes, sponsorship and marketing rights and using our platform that we give to market products and services. We have overall NBAs of over 1 billion funds. Within Africa we have millions, we have 1.2 billion impressions in the last season and when you look at our social media platforms, we have a big reach. So that reach allows partners like ours to really access the funds that we have. And that's how we monetize one way. The other one is merchandise. And the good news is that we just opened an e-commerce portal. It's called balstore.nba.com, where you can buy merchandise from anywhere using our e-commerce platform.

4:16Now, we know that the market, not just in Africa, but also especially the African diaspora all over the world, has been looking to own something with BAL whenever they interact with it. We saw pictures last year of season four with a family in Brazil walking around with BAL, and we wondered where they got the BAL merchandise. You know, we've seen pictures in Heathrow where people are crossing security and they're wearing BAL, and those anecdotes showed us that there's really appetite for consuming BAL beyond the African market, market but also with especially the African diaspora all over the world who are really big.

4:50In fact, one of the statistics that a colleague of mine shared with me is if you take out China and India, the African diaspora is the third country in terms of population globally. So interacting with that market as part of what we have to offer as BAL continues to be important for us. The third one is ticketing. When you come to watch games, every year we see ticketing revenues go up because more and more funds are coming to watch our games and paying to watch our games and that has been really important as well. Now, the media market, obviously as well, is a big part of sports leagues. It's a growing aspect in Africa.

5:23Whether it's pay TV, it's still very limited in terms of the coverage, free-to-air, many of the free-to-air broadcasters are national and therefore kind of free access in the countries where they serve. But we see that changing. And I think when you say what does the future look like, one of the areas we see the future changing is very much around what Lewal talked about, which is integrating markets in Africa. I think the more integrated markets are, the more integrated services are, the more integrated we can be, the more you can actually use platforms to provide, whether it's streaming or broadcasting to markets across the continent.

6:02Now, people like to say we need to integrate Africa more, and we really need to. We've talked about the African continental free trade area. It's a big aspiration to really break down all these barriers so we can trade as one market. But a lot has to be done for that to happen, and I think we all touched on a couple of those. How do you adjust a business in Rwanda and be able to give your services across the 54 countries? That's not happening yet today. How do you get a license to broadcast in one country and broadcast in many countries so you can actually access a much bigger market on the continent?

6:30Those kinds of things need to be solved so that we can actually provide services across the continent. The good news, I think, especially for media rights, is what we see in some of what the telcos are doing. If you give an example of MTN, 300 million subscribers across the continent, I know that they're thinking about using that platform that already is connected by subscription all over the continent to provide content such as content that we would be interested in. So I think that's going to change, and I think we're going to see more access to media, more media integration, and media contributing a lot more than we're seeing today.

7:02And for me, the future is bright.

7:10Claire, just to piggyback on that, you talked about the challenges as far as only having five arenas in continent Africa, and obviously that makes it difficult to expand. But when you're looking at expanding to either having different teams or just a focus in a different area, what are some of the top areas on the continent that you guys have on your board as far as you want to have more expansion in? Well, we'd like to be in all the countries in Africa if we could. but today we play in four countries but we have 12 teams that play so ideally in those 12 teams should be representing countries that we have that there's interest in playing in but beyond the 12 even before we get the qualifiers for the 12 we have the road to BAL a lot more countries actually participate so actually countries that are participating in the wider community that BAL brings together is more than four countries at horse, is more than 12 teams at play It's a lot more, you know, if you come from the qualification road to BL until the final competitions.

8:12And so our goal is to work with as many countries as possible that wish to be part of this story and they're there. Every day we get, as I said, you know, I know Nigeria is building an arena, Benin is building an arena, you know, we were in Morocco for the first time after Egypt. You know, we are going to South Africa. The many countries, Kenya, for example, we have an office in Kenya and the Nairobi City Thunders came for the first time representing Kenya in the BAL and so you can this Uganda had a team city oilers that has been coming for the last seasons so there's potential in a lot more countries I think the question is how do we work with investors how do we work with the governments to put in place that environment of infrastructure that could allow this to happen the good news is that every year as we grow and we see the impact of BAL we get more interest including from development financial institutions like Afroxin Bank, AFDB.

9:04We've seen investors come to us and say, what does it take to build an arena? Who do we build an arena for? And I think that's going to change. I really think that over the next five years, you're going to see a lot more standardized arenas than you've seen today. And that's going to allow us to play in as many countries as we could. Our goal is to have many countries come to be part of the BAL experience. Ernest, what's up? You ever walk into a small business and everything just works? Like the checkout is fast, the receipts are digital, tipping is a breeze, and you're out the door before the line even builds.

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11:24NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, a.k.a. neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A new year doesn't ask us to become someone new. It invites us back home to ourselves. I'm Mike Della Rocha, host of Sacred Lessons. A space for men to pause, reflect, and heal. This year, we're talking honestly about mental health, relationships, and the patterns we're ready to release. If you're looking for clarity, connection, and healthier ways to show up in your life, Sacred Lessons is here for you.

12:07Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Delaroach on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Joel. And Matt. From HowToMoney. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high. And the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right. Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

12:45This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we've got some incredible guests like Kumail Nanjiani. Let's start with your cat. How is she? She is not with us anymore. Okay, great, great, great way to start. Maybe you will cry. Ross Matthews. You know what kids always say to me? Are you a boy or a girl? Oh my God. All the time. That's so funny. I know. So I try to butch it up for kids so they're not confused. Yeah, but you're butching it up. It's basically like Doris Day. No, I turn into Bea Arthur. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

13:20This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.