The Basketball Africa League (BAL) on Wednesday announced that the league will return for its fifth season, with the tip-off set for Saturday, April 5, 2025, Afrosport reports.
The organisers, however, revealed that some changes will accompany its fifth season, as for the first time ever, games will be played in Morocco, and the BAL Finals will be held in South Africa in another landmark move in the league’s history.
The April 5 tip-off will be held at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Sports Complex in Rabat, Morocco, and the league will end with the 2025 BAL Finals on Saturday, June 14, at the SunBet Arena in Pretoria, South Africa.
Like the previous campaign, the 2025 BAL season will feature the top 12 teams from 12 African nations with 48 games to be played across Rabat, Dakar (Senegal), Kigali (Rwanda), and Pretoria. However, unlike the previous seasons, Cairo, Egypt, will no longer host games.
The 12 teams will be divided into three conferences—Kalahari, Nile, and Sahara—with four teams in each conference. There will be 12 games played in each conference, with each team playing six games each, facing the other teams in its conference twice.
The Kalahari Conference group phase will take place from April 5 to Sunday, April 13 in Rabat. The Sahara Conference group phase will begin on Saturday, April 26 and culminate on Sunday, May 4 at the Dakar Arena in Senegal. The Nile Conference group phase, which used to be in Cairo, will now take place from Saturday, May 17–Sunday, May 25 at BK Arena in Kigali, which used to host the BAL Finals.
The league has fixed the playoffs to tip off in Pretoria on Friday, June 6, with eight teams from the three conferences progressing into the postseason. The 2025 BAL Finals, however, will be held on Saturday, June 14.
💥 THE BASKETBALL AFRICA LEAGUE IS BACK IN 2025! 🏀
📍🇲🇦 Rabat, Morocco: April 5–13 (𝗞𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲)
📍🇸🇳 Dakar, Senegal: April 26–May 4 (𝗦𝗮𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲)
📍🇷🇼 Kigali, Rwanda: May 17–25 (𝗡𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲)
📍🇿🇦 Pretoria, South… pic.twitter.com/OA6opt318Y— Basketball Africa League (@theBAL) November 21, 2024
“We have seen tremendous growth over the BAL’s first four seasons in the level of on-court competition, attendance, and engagement from fans and partners in Africa and globally,” said BAL President Amadou Gallo Fall. “Our milestone fifth season will build on that momentum and further showcase the level of talent and passion for basketball in Africa, including through the first BAL games in Morocco and the first BAL Finals in South Africa.”
“The Kalahari Conference marks another expansion of the BAL into a new country on our continent, and we are more than satisfied,” said Anibal Manave, President of FIBA Africa. “Year after year, this competition grows, giving greater exposure to our sport and helping to elevate the level of basketball in Africa by making the league more and more competitive.”
This season also comes with another twist, as unlike previous seasons, where six teams qualified automatically as champions of their national leagues, it will be seven this time around.
The national champions from seven countries—Angola, Egypt, Morocco (new), Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, and Tunisia—will automatically qualify for the BAL. The other five teams will qualify through the usual route of the Road to the BAL qualifying tournaments conducted by FIBA Africa across the continent from October to December 2024.
Angola’s Petro de Luanda are defending champions of the BAL, defeating Libya’s Ahly Benghazi on June 1 to become the first sub-Saharan African team to win the BAL Finals.
