Get Guardian on GoogleIt was an educative experience for many basketball enthusiasts last weekend when the Basketball Africa League (BAL) joined other stakeholders to discuss the future of the game at Creative Africa Nexus (CANEX) WKND 2026 in Lagos.
The event which held in Lagos from November 5 to 8 November, part of BAL’s collaboration with Afreximbank, highlighted basketball’s role in developing African sporting talent, advancing women’s empowerment and creating opportunities across the continent.
Throughout CANEX WKND, the BAL and its partners, Visit Rwanda and Rwanda Air, also hosted a merchandise display showcasing the league and its partners to attendees.
As part of the event, BAL Ambassador and ESPN analyst, Chiney Ogwumike, led a masterclass, titled, “Crowning Our Future Champions,” drawing on the work of her foundation, Queens of the Continent. The session explored how basketball can create greater opportunities for young women and girls through access to facilities, community support and confidence-building.
Speaking at the masterclass, Ogwumike said: “If talent has no gender, opportunity shouldn’t either. When girls have a court to play on, a community behind them and the confidence to believe in themselves, they can go as far as their talent takes them.”
On November 6, the BAL and Queens of the Continent hosted the BAL4HER Showcase, a one-day 3×3 tournament featuring the top 20 participants from the BAL4HER Elevate Camp held in Lagos earlier this year. The showcase provided participants with an opportunity to demonstrate their talent and connect with the wider creative and sports industries at CANEX.
Earlier that day, BAL President Amadou Gallo Fall participated in a high-level panel discussion titled “Creating Sustainable Pathways to Success for Global African Sporting Talent,” where industry stakeholders discussed the investment, collaboration and structures needed to support athletes from grassroots development through to professional opportunities.
“Talent has never been Africa’s problem. The challenge is building the infrastructure, competition and structures around that talent, so that leaving the continent is a choice rather than the only route to the highest levels,” Fall said. “Investment in a court should connect to programming, and programming to coaching and competition. That is how a court becomes a pathway and not just a facility.”
Building on these conversations, the BAL continues to invest in initiatives that strengthen the basketball ecosystem across the continent, including the development and renovation of courts that provide professional and recreational players with spaces to play and develop their skills.
As part of these efforts, the BAL will unveil its second BAL4HER community court in Ogwumike parents homeland, Owerri, Nigeria, next month in collaboration with Qatar Foundation and Queens of the Continent. The initiative will combine access to basketball facilities with community programming and local partnerships designed to create more opportunities for women and girls to participate in and develop through the game.
