African Basketball League to expand to twenty teams.

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African Basketball League looking to scale up

World basketball is dominated by the NBA in the US. On the African continent, the African Basketball League is the top tier of the sport and was launched in December 2015. The inaugural season launched under 3 months ago in March and the men’s professional league has gained love from Nigeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Gabon and currently boasts of 6 teams.

Game venues have alternated between the four countries with teams represented and at the last matchday in Ivory Coast, CEO of the league, Ugo Udezue announced the desire to expand the league. Udezue stated the desire to have games across the continent asserting “We don’t want to be in Abidjan only, we want to be in Nigeria, Gabon, Senegal. ABL is not just about Nigeria, but using basketball and sports in general to create an opportunity for us Africans, because we have the best talents in the world and its an opportunity to bring back the game to Africa.”

He went on to explain that the league is already holding conversations to realize the dream of expansion. Udezue stated that “We are currently having conversations with different countries that want to be part of we are doing. We want to add at least six more countries next season. The Abidjan Basketball Challenge is a great opportunity to show to Africa what we can do and people that think there is nothing special about what we are doing to be part of what us and embrace us.

He went further to say that the number of teams will soon increase to twenty over the next two years as ABL continues to grow.

“We are increasing the number of teams to ten next season; and in next two years we are going to have twenty teams in the ABL.

He closed by calling on corporate organizations to be part of the ABL project.

Source: Business Day