NBA Pushes Deeper Overseas, Selling Franchises for Africa League

Sept. 29, 2025, 5:35 PM UTC

The National Basketball Association, in its latest move to aggressively grow overseas, will soon begin selling franchises for its league in Africa, Commissioner Adam Silver said.

The NBA, which created its Basketball Africa League in 2019 and played its first season two years later, aims to sell 12 new teams alongside an opportunity to build home arenas for those franchises, Silver said last week at the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Forum in New York.

“It’s a continent where they’ve not experienced the same level of sports investment as other places in the world,” Silver said.

Joel Embiid is part of a growing number of NBA players from Africa.
Photographer: Emilee Chinn/Getty Images

The process of selling ...

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