Data and technology supplier has Genius Sports entered into a data partnership with the Basketball Africa League (BAL), a new club competition that launched last week.
Under the agreement, Genius will serve as the official provider of real-time statistics for the BAL, which commenced its debut season on 16 May.
Genius will provide the league with its International Basketball Federation (Fiba) LiveStats data collection tool, capturing play-by-play statistics from courtside at every BAL game including shot, foul and turnover locations.
Data captured by Fiba LiveStats will be used power the BAL’s website, live broadcasts, media partnerships and in-arena scoreboards.
“The BAL will showcase and develop the most exciting basketball talent from across Africa and we’re very proud that our statistics technology will be at the heart of this new competition,” Genius Sports chief executive Mark Locke said.
“For more than 15 years, we have worked closely with FIBA to drive the development of world basketball and we’re thrilled to be working alongside the BAL to extend the sport’s reach and profile.”
The BAL is a pan-African partnership between the North America’s National Basketball Association (NBA) and Fiba, and will feature 12 teams from across Africa.
Champions from the national leagues in Angola, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia automatically qualified for the inaugural BAL season, while the remaining six teams, from Algeria, Cameroon, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique and Rwanda secured their places through BAL qualifying tournaments.
