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- [00:00]
Claire
Run a business and not thinking about podcasting? Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. Learn how podcasting can help your business. Call 844-844-IHeart.
- [00:18]
Podcast Host (True Crime)
The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist and a handful of girls kill came forward with a story.
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Luol Deng
America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.
- [00:44]
Podcast Host (True Crime)
Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. Short on time, but big on true crime. On a recent episode of the podcast Hunting for Answers, I highlighted the story of 19 year old Lachey Dungey. But she never knocked on that door. She never made it inside. And that text message would be the last time anyone would ever hear from her. Listen to Hunting for Answers from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:28]
Evan Ratliff
When news broke earlier this year that baby kj, a newborn in Philadelphia, had successfully received the world's first personalized gene editing treatment, it represented a milestone for both researchers and patients. But there's a gripping tale of discovery behind this accomplishment and its creators. I'm Evan Ratliff and together with biographer Walter Isaacson, we're delving into the story of Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna, the woman who's helped change the trajectory of humanity. Listen to on crispr, the story of Jennifer Doudna with Walter isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:59]
Interviewer (Sports/Business)
Well, I'll start with you. You know, your career coming from the highest levels of basketball, right? Like playing in the NBA, being a star in the NBA. What made you, you know, want to do a 360 move and come back home and, you know, take over South Sudan basketball, Right? As opposed to just, you know, being a GM at an NBA team or, you know, being a coach in college, like, you know, that a lot of people probably would have took that path.
- [02:28]
Luol Deng
Yeah, great question. You know, for me, coming back was important because obviously being from the continent and coming out of, you know, South Sudan and, you know, go into Egypt, uk, the path that, you know, I talked about a lot. But it's important because I remember just to go back. My first time back in South Sudan was 2010, right before the independence. I remember Amadou had a vision of, you know, us doing basketball camps in five or six different countries every summer. And these camps we were doing outside outdoor courts. Whoever wanted to tag along would come with us. And it just kept growing and kept growing. And I just remember, and I said it the other day, I came from, you know, a background that's so similar to all these kids that we were trying to provide an opportunity for. And I just believe that the talent is there. You know, it's just about the organization and an infrastructure, the same things that we talk about, you know, and I've. I've just got to have. You know, I've learned so much from basketball, whether it's my high school coach, whether it's playing for Coach K, whether it's playing in the NBA for Scottskill Tipperdale. And as a player, I always try to read the game. So I knew, you know, throughout my camps and everything that I was doing all over the years, the talent that we had and the opportunity that we had. And it was always been my dream, you know, to put South Sudan in the map, but also to promote basketball and just to show people the potential in the continent. And the timing was just right. When I retired, BAL obviously was on its way, and I just knew that there was going to be a lot of focus within the continent with the game of basketball. I was part of the NBA game in South Africa. I just seen the growth of it to where we are here now today, and I wanted to be a part of it, but also to have my input and what I can do. And South Sudan, obviously, everybody knows the story, but when I took over that program, I knew that it's a lot to be done, but the one thing that I knew was that if we were able to have a great national team and compete, it will obviously bring excitement and joy to the whole continent, but it will also raise a lot of questions that needed to be answered, and we're still working on those, on how do we get there, you know, So I knew right away, as soon as I retired, I needed to be back here and kind of put in my blueprint.
- [05:35]
Moderator/Interviewer
And we thank you for that, my brother. Claire, let's talk about where we're at today. Five years of the bal. Congratulations.
- [05:41]
Claire
Thank you.
- [05:42]
Moderator/Interviewer
Not one person clapped. I'm not sure why, but talk about the vision for it, right when you created the. The idea or coming up with the idea, there was a vision, a blueprint for it. I wonder, as you look five years post that, has it met your expectations? Has the development gone according to plan? What have been some of the struggles into this five year anniversary of bal?
- [06:08]
Claire
Thank you and first of all, Rashad and Troy, welcome to BAL and welcome to the NEL conference. And thanks to all of you that are still here. We talked about resilience. You're such a resilient audience. You've been here the whole day. But back to your question. So when NBA decided to invest in Africa, I think there were a number of things that were obvious. One of them that has been said throughout the day is that there's talent in Africa. In fact, today in NBA, about 10% of our players have either directly or indirectly some links to the African continent. Either one of their parents or both their parents are from the African continent. 10% and that's about 50 players. So already there's talent that's making its way to the NBA. Now imagine if we were to be intentional about identifying, harnessing that talent. I think those numbers would be even more because Africa, as has been said the whole day, has talent. But also we know that not everybody can go and play in the NBA. NBA is about 500 players and we have 1.5 billion Africans with a lot of talent. And not everybody will have a chance to go there. So how do we create opportunities for African players or talent to stay on the continent and play professionally in a league such as the BAL that we have here? And that was one of the thought processes that went there. But also for those of you who are great fans of NBA, you know that you have to wake up early in the mornings. My husband is one of those who, who always wakes up 2am, 3am, 4am to switch on the lights and watch a basketball game. But when you're here, you watch a basketball game in normal hours, right? At 2pm, at 7pm and you can go to bed in normal hours. And so that means we can actually give access to the game of basketball to a lot more people that don't have to wake up at 2am or 3am who love the game of basketball. So bringing that opportunity as well to our fans to give them something that they can interact and access was also very, very important. The other one was also being intentional around building the talent. I mean, we've talked about NBA Academy, you've heard about some of the players, Carmen Maluanch that was talked about in the previous panel and a couple of others, Ulrich Chomchi, who is playing for Toronto Raptors, all of them went through NBA Academy, and we expect to see even more coming out of that. We have other talent programs that we work very closely with, like Seed Academy that Amadou founded in Senegal, that has had a kind of good relationship with the NBA Academy in terms of supporting to nurture the talent in a much bigger scale. So all of that is really about how do you identify the talent. But the last thing is something that my deputy commissioner likes to talk about. Mark Tatum. The first conversations they had when they came to Africa at the time, more than five years ago, with heads of state, with policymakers, and it became very clear to them and the NBA that if you're going to positively impact Africa, you need to think about the youth of Africa. And what do the youth of Africa need? We've had statistics like 70% of the African population, which is 1.5 billion people, are young people below the age of 30. And so if you're going to really impact Africa, you have to think about the youth, and you have to think about how to support the creation of jobs for these youth. So outside the court, apart from the talent, those that will play basketball, also creating economic opportunities that will support the youth to get jobs and to support this ecosystem of basketball by having the bal in Africa. In the countries that we play today, we play in four countries. Our vision is to play in many, many more countries. And you can only imagine when we play in many more countries, the impact will be even more. But today, $250 million, 37,000 jobs in just four seasons. Imagine how much more transformation we will do if we play in 40 countries instead of four in the next 10, 20 years. You can just imagine.
- [10:15]
Interviewer (Sports/Business)
Well, that was actually my next question, and both of you guys can answer this. As far as how do you measure success? So looking out five years in the future or 10 years in the future, Right. What does success look like for this league and just basketball in whole when it comes to the continent of Africa? Is it 30 teams across the continent? Is there grassroots program like AAU programs that we see in America? How do you envision the content of Africa as far as a successful movement when it comes to not only NBA basketball, but basketball as a whole? Either both of you?
- [10:49]
Luol Deng
Yeah, I think if you look back to what I was saying, maybe around 2010 or even before me, I think if you look at how basketball has been developing in a continent to begin with, you know, when I first came into the league, everybody was used to, I mean, African players being, you know, you know, big guys who just rebound and, you know, black shot. Obviously, Hakeem Olajuwon had the skill, but when he first came over, he was given the opportunity because of his height and so on. So guys were just looking for tall African players who, you know, are athletic. As the game went on, I remember when I first came in the league, it bothered me that I was only, you know, the only. I shouldn't say the only, but one of the few African players who are a primitive player and so on. And now if you look at the league now with, you know, Siakam and Embiid and all these guys that are so skilled, it just shows you where the game is going and where the development is going. So I think as much as, you know, we are still improving, you got to give credit to where we are today. And as Claire said, how many players in the NBA or just around the world that are playing the game that have, you know, roots back to the continent or, you know, came directly from the continent, and now we're seeing guys like Kaman Maloja and so on coming straight out of, you know, the academies in Africa. But also to go back, I think we also need to focus on the grassroots side of things, on programs that have proven themselves, programs that, you know, continuously keep on bringing on players, but also developing not just the players, but the coaches, the referee, and so on. And I always talk about Amadou is a great example with Seed Academy. As long as I've been back in the continent, Seed Academy has existed, and Seed Academy has given so much to the game of basketball from the continent. How many players came out of there, how many players are playing in Europe and so on. On those type of program, we need to protect and enhance and also make some type of connection with, you know, the U.S. and Europe. Because no matter what, we have to admit that, you know, the game is more advanced in those places. And there's a lot of coaches that have so much information that they can, you know, share and develop. And as far as, I think, as far as balance, I think we all see the vision. You know, there's great leadership within the bal. I happen to be a part of it, and I see it every day, and I see that, you know, the direction and what we're trying to accomplish as a league. And as Claire said, it's really amazing when you look at the BAL of how many opportunities it's creating. The panel earlier, people were asking questions on how to get involved. And the way I see, I mean, obviously the NBA is a global, and it's been going on for years. But when we look at BAL in the continent, it's not just basketball. There's so much that comes with it. Even us sitting up here because of bal, there's so much we're talking about that will motivate others. And we're talking positively, consistently about the continent. And we're creating jobs, but we're also connecting it with, you know, with the culture, we're connecting it with the youth and so on. How can we pull more people in, not just the fans, but how can we create more jobs and so on. So I think the direction is clear. You know, everybody. Everybody has an opinion, but I really got to trust on the leadership to where it was and where it is now and where it's going.
- [14:48]
Moderator/Interviewer
Claire, I want to. I want to talk about that as well. Right. Infrastructure is important. And it's funny, I was watching a game on Sunday, and I'm looking in an arena. I'm like, this is a state of our arena. There's intentionality. The fans are engaged. But this is bigger than basketball, right? Not only are people visiting Rwanda, but people are investing in Rwanda. I know you've been a part of that process long before the bal, but talk about the intentionality to combine those two things, to say, yes, this is basketball, but no, this is a place where you can come and invest and potentially see growth here.
- [15:18]
Claire
Thank you. Maybe before I come to that, your question about what does success look like? And I think we've talked about jobs. We've talked about economic impact. We think, you know, BAL will contribute $5.4 billion in 10 years. We think jobs will come to 650,000. It is same. But my real measure of success that I. I think about is I remember a few weeks ago, I went to hike in Kenya in a place called Ngong Hills. And while there, I picked a conversation with a stranger. And soon or later, I told this person that I work for the NBA. And then she called her son quickly and said, this lady works for the NBA. And then the son says, oh, my God, you work for the NBA National Basketball Association. I said, yes. And then he said, have you met LeBron James? Can you connect me to LeBron James? While my answer was no to both questions, my measure of success is hiking somewhere in China 10 years from now or 15 years from now. And I tell somebody about my job in NBA, and they say, oh, have you met Nori Habimana? Have you met Washira from Nairobi? Have you met Haruna from Dakar? And I say, and I hope then I can say yes to both answers and yes, I can connect you to Haruna, to Nore and to those other. Because in China they're watching BAL and they're following every season of bal. So that is my measure of success many years from now. But maybe back to your question around intentionality. I think one of the reasons that the BAL partnered with Rwanda at the very beginning was because we found that we had a meeting of minds in how we were intentional about bringing something new to African funds. We had a vision as BAL to start a league, but to do that we needed countries to invest or even investors to invest in infrastructure in arenas, but also everything around basketball, the teams, the federation, etc. But we also knew that by coming to the market with a NBA, BAL was a big incentive for countries that had similar minds to invest in it because they trusted NBA with the track record that NBA had done and they would trust what NBA was going to do, the BAL as well. And so, you know, a few years down the road, when you look at Rwanda, for example, I mean, yes, I saw from the beginning when BAL came, when was thinking about what are we going to do with bal. And if you look at it today, not only has Rwanda hosted five seasons, the economic impact has been great. I think we've got talked about that. But one thing that I see a big improvement is that we hardly saw any competition from the federation. It was very low. But when you look at the teams in the federation, all of them investing, one of the teams, Tigers, is getting investment from the pension fund. And I saw Louise from the pension fund here they are investing in one of the teams, Tigers. I know BRD is investing in the Patriots reg, among other teams, are also getting vessels investments from the local companies in Rwanda, whether it's development banks or pension funds. And all of that is helping the level of competition at the local level go up. And when I meet the Tigers team, they're like, did you see that? Now we've come to number two from number, you know, close to 10. And they're like, wait, next year we're going to come to bal. That is the level of competition we're seeing not just in Rwanda, but in federations across the countries where we play. And whether it's Senegal or Morocco, Egypt, Rwanda, the level of play, I think has been incentivized, among others by the BAL being there. But we also know that in addition to building the talent or building this ecosystem, infrastructure is very key. And today in Africa, can you believe that There are only five arenas in the whole of Africa, in the 54 countries of Africa that are ready to receive an NBA or BAL game. Can you imagine that? Just five out of the 54 countries. But there are many others that could just do with some work and renovations, improvements, refurbishments that could bring the number much higher. The good news is that when we speak to heads of state, when we speak to the ministers of sports, when we speak to investors, more and more of them are seeing that investing in infrastructure and investing in sports is actually a good business for them. And I believe that in the next few years, we're going to see more arenas. I know Benin is building one, Lagos is building one, Angola is renovating one. And we're going to see many of those coming up across the continent. And this is how we're going to see the economic impact and the talent impact grow. Even much more than we've seen today.
- [19:51]
Interviewer (Sports/Business)
Sure as well. Talking about investing in real estate, Louis, I know you, you're an avid real estate investor. We have a mutual friend, David Rose. So what is your thoughts as far as investment on the continent? What are you currently involved in and what's your thoughts on real estate?
- [20:07]
Luol Deng
Yeah, this turned real quick. You know, I think right now is the right time to really invest in the continent. I know that as people who invested in the past, but there's a lot of great opportunities. The most important thing that I've learned is understanding in my situation that the rules are completely different. At the end of the day, there is an, you know, there's an agenda and a perspective that's made on the continent that keeps a lot of people shy and keep a lot of people away. But, you know, once you come into the continent and you understand, understand the impact of investment and the return of investment, your mind changes quickly. And I think the most important thing, and we talked about it earlier, within each country in Africa, the rules are different. And the most important thing are the people that you work with and the individuals that you surround yourself with to really guide you. I always give an example of, you know, there's an investment that I made in New York and, you know, everyone talks about corruption in the continent and so on. And I remember in my investment in New York, all I had to do was to finish the project. There was an electricity line that needed to, you know, instead of being up, it needed to go on the ground. And there's an electricity company that's supposed to take care of it. And six months, eight months, I can't get a hold of them or their Schedule is busy. It took one visit to the mayor's office, a couple pictures on social media, and so on, and the next day they were there. But that's not called corruption because, you know, I'm going through a company in the continent, you do the same thing where you go through one individual that you got to take care of. But, you know, so it's similar rules. It's just understanding. But in the continent, there's amazing opportunities. And I think earlier with the earlier podcast, what we really, I mean, not podcast, but when we were up here in a panel, I spoke about really the continent focusing on having similar rules that makes it easier to keep growing the business and. And involving other people. You know, ministries coming together and implementing rules that really benefits, you know, both sides or different countries. Cause right now, if I wanted to invest in Rwanda, it's safer to invest in Rwanda, I could understand the rules. I have people that can take me through it. But I'll keep on coming back to Rwanda because of that. And there's nothing wrong with that. But if you're trying to bring the continent together, it makes a lot of sense if, you know, the implementation are the same within South Sudan or Rwanda, for example. So when I go back over there, I know the rules and how to follow it, and I think that's kind of keeping the continent, you know, held back in terms of growth. And another thing, too, that I always like to bring up, when we speak about the continent, we always speak as one continent, you know, and as soon as you start, you know, thinking about implementing improvement or what you want to do, it goes into regions, you start hearing Francophone East Africa, you know, and then when you get there, then it's. It goes into different states or cities, and then from there it goes into villages and towns, and then it's clan. It just keeps on going, you know, and. And it makes it that kind of mindset. It makes it so difficult to grow all together at once. And that's why, you see, you know, right now, you see, you know, certain countries leading and so on. And, you know, if you take America, for example, you know, yes, it's a big country, you know, United States, but it's similar from state to state. You can, you know, you can grow any business and kind of, you know, keep on repeating it. For example, if you own Starbucks in, I don't know, in New Jersey, it's probably the same rules to buy a land and implement those rules. It's not. It's not the same in the continent. And, you know, that's something we need to focus on. But the opportunity in terms of, you know, investing and doing it the right way, the satisfaction, well, for me anyway, the satisfaction is a lot more than just, you know, what you get back in terms of, you know, earning or a successful business. We talked about the opportunities, the jobs it creates and so on. And one thing about the continent is you have to be creative in whatever you're doing to be able to reach out as far as you can. You can't be one dimensional and just focus on one thing. You gotta, you know, try to bring everybody along with you.
- [25:15]
Moderator/Interviewer
Claire, you brought up something earlier. You said your husband was up at 3 in the morning watching NBA. I'm gonna tell you something. That was me last night. It'll probably be me tonight. New York is playing tonight. But it got me to thinking about media rights and revenue streams. And so for the bal, is there a Nick fan, is it a traditional model where it's media rights, it's merchandising, it's tourism, how is it structured here and what's the plan for scalability for that?
- [25:50]
Claire
Thank you. So mainly four ways that leagues like ours can monetize. And I think the more common one for African for our league is sponsorship and marketing partnerships. And that's why you see some of the partnerships we have here, ServiceNow, Visitor Africa and run there. So yes, sponsorship and marketing rights and using our, you know, platform that we give to market products and services. We have overall, NBA has over 1 billion funds within Africa, we have millions. We have 1.2, you know, impression billion impressions in the last season. And when you look at our social media platforms, we have a big reach. So that reach allows, you know, partners like ours to really access the funds that we have. And that's how we monetize one way. The other one is merchandise. And good news is that we just opened an e commerce Portal, it's called Balstore.NBA.com where you can buy merchandise from anywhere using our e commerce platform. Now we know that the market not just in Africa, but also especially the African diaspora all over the world has been looking to own something with BAL whenever they interact with it. We saw pictures last year of season four with a family in Brazil walking around with bal and we wondered where they got the BAL merchandise. You know, we've seen pictures in Heathrow where people crossing security and they're wearing bal. And those anecdotes showed us that there's really appetite for consuming BAL beyond the African market, but also with especially the African Diaspora all over the world who are really big. In fact, one of the statistics that, you know, a colleague of mine shared with me is, you know, if you take out China and India, the African diaspora is the third country in terms of population globally. So interacting with that market as part of what we have to offer as B L continues to be important for us. The third one is ticketing. You know, when you come to watch games every year we see ticketing revenues go up because more and more funds are coming to watch our games and paying to watch our games. And that has been really important as well. Now the media market obviously as well, is a big part of sports leagues. It's a growing aspect in Africa. Whether it's pay tv, it's still very limited in terms of the coverage. Free to air, Many of the free to air broadcasters are national and therefore kind of free access in the countries where they serve. But we see that changing. And I think when you say, what does the future look like? One of the areas we see the future in changing is very much around what Luol talked about, which is integrating markets in Africa. I think the more integrated markets are, the more integrated services are, the more integrated we can be, the more you can actually use platforms to, you know, provide whether it's streaming or broadcasting to markets across the continent. Now people like to say we need to integrate Africa more and we really do need to. We've talked about the African continent of the. The free trade area. It's a big aspiration to really break down all these barriers so we can trade as one market. But a lot has to be done for that to happen. And I think you all touched on a couple of those. How do you register business in Rwanda and be able to, you know, give your services across the 54 countries? That's not happening yet today. How do you, you know, get a license to broadcast in one country and broadcast in many countries so you can actually access a much bigger market on the continent? Those kinds of things need to be solved so that we can actually provide services across the continent. The good news, I think, especially for media rights, is what we see in some of what the telcos are doing. If you give an example of MTN 300 million subscribers across the continent, I know that they're thinking about using that platform that already is connected by subscription all over the continent to provide content, such as content that we would be interested in. So I think that's going to change and I think we're going to see more access to media, more media integration and media Contributing a lot more than we are seeing today. And for me, the future is bright.
- [29:44]
Interviewer (Sports/Business)
Claire, just to piggyback on that, you talked about the challenges as far as only having five arenas in continent Africa, and obviously that makes it difficult to expand. But when you're looking at expanding to either having different teams or just a focus in a different area, what are some of the top areas on the continent that you guys have on your board as far as you want to have more expansion in?
- [30:09]
Claire
Well, we would like to be in all the countries in Africa if we could, but today we play in four countries, but we have 12 teams that play. So ideally in those 12, you know, those 12 teams should be representing countries that we have that there's interest in playing in playing in. But beyond the 12, even before we get the qualifiers for the 12, we have the road to Bal. A lot more countries actually participate. So actually, countries that are participating in the Wider community that BAL brings together is more than, you know, four countries that host is more than 12 teams that play. It's a lot more, you know, if you come from the qualification road to BAL until the final competitions. And so our goal is to work with as many countries as possible that wish to. To be part of this story. And they're there every day. We get, as I said, you know, I know Nigeria is building an arena, Benin is building an arena. You know, we were in Morocco for the first time after Egypt. You know, we are going to South Africa, the many countries, Kenya, for example, we have an office in Kenya. And the Nairobi City Thunders came, you know, for the first time representing Kenya in the bal. And so you can. Uganda had a team, City Oilers, that has been coming for the last seasons. So there's potential in a lot more countries. I think the question is, how do we work with investors, how do we work with the governments to put in place that environment of infrastructure that could allow this to happen. The good news is that every year as we grow and we see the impact of bal, we get more interest, including from development financial institutions like Afrexim Bank, AfDB. We've seen investors come to us and say, what does it take to build an arena? Who do we build an arena for? And I think that's going to change. I really think that over the next five years, you're going to see a lot more standardized arenas that you've seen today. And that's going to allow us to play in as many countries as we could. Our goal is to have many countries come to be part of the bal. Experience.
- [32:04]
Moderator/Interviewer
Loelle, a lot of times we see players retire and they struggle to find their purpose after they've left. Players playing the game. You haven't quite had that issue. Rashad talked about your investment portfolio, in a sense, and how you've been doing with that. And obviously coming back here and taking over the Sudan program. I wonder how influential it is amongst your peers, right, the guys that you used to play with. Colleagues. Because not only were they players, but they could potentially be investors going forward. How influential have you been in. In inspiring them? And are they curious about what's happening here in Bal? I know Royale is coaching with you. I've seen you come here with yo Keem a few times. How's that been?
- [32:47]
Luol Deng
Nah, great question. I think, first of all, I hope you know that I am inspiring them. I've been inspired by people before me and so on. I think for me, the continent is in a different place place than it was in the past. Part of it could be just how connected the world is now with, you know, the Internet and so on and social media. And I think people are getting positive stories and putting positive stories out there. I think, you know, in the past there's been, like I said before, there's this, you know, the image and understanding of the continent hasn't been well represented as it is now. For me, it was a lot easier to continue. You know, a lot of people see after I retired, taking on the national team. But throughout my whole career, I was really focused on, you know, basketball camps and, you know, growing the game in the continent, going back, coming back and spending time and so on. So I knew even before I retired that I was going to be involved a lot more. To be honest, I wasn't planning to be the president of Basketball Federation in South Sudan. It's just the timing of it. And just to give you a quick story, the way I looked at it was if I became the president of South Sudan Basketball Federation, I was just going to focus on the basketball team. But that's not the case. You know, as president Basketball Federation in South Sudan, I have to focus on every state in South Sudan. We're the youngest nation in the world. We don't have a single basketball indoor court as of today. You know, all the success that we've had in three years, we've never practiced at home. You know, we were lucky. Well, we were fortunate. And thanks to Rwanda, we spend most of our time here preparing before we go anywhere to play because of the facilities that they have. So, like Claire said earlier, only Five countries that have that kind of facility, you know, it discourages a lot of people from coming back and those are the things that we have to change. I think like you said, Royale Ivy and so on. And as you see now in the bal a lot more, got a lot more places players are coming back and want to be in a continent and beside the basketball game and earlier some people talk about how good the court is and so on. So those are positive images that we're putting out and talking about. But most important is when they come to the continent, it completely changed them, it changes their mindset, it changes you know what it is. And, and that's what I mean earlier by with doing more than just the game, you know, and a lot more people want to be a part of it. And you know, as you asked, I have so many players, ex teammates and so on that want to be a part of bal, you know and you got guys like, you know, Derrick Rose going back to going, you know, coming to the continent, going to Senegal, putting a camp together, going to Seed Academy, all that plays a role in to everybody coming back. So we're playing a big part besides just basketball of promoting the continent the right way. And you know, I'm happy to be a part of it and I know that the growth is going to keep on going, you know, to start from where we started and where we are today. It speaks for itself. And Claire just mentioned of the vision and where it's going and no matter what we do, you know, this is going to keep on growing. It's just how it, just how it is with what we're trying to put around it, what we're trying to implement. Every year that we come back we see more improvement. The game is getting better, people understand the game better, there's more things to do, people are taking advantage of being here and learning and so on. So it's just going to keep on getting better and you know, we don't have to do much in convincing people. I think people will see.
- [36:56]
Claire
I must say Luol, that after the Olympics, many, many times I meet people that say, oh, you know, you work for NBA bl. Congratulations for the great work you did for South Sudan. And I just politely say thank you, I appreciate it.
- [37:10]
Luol Deng
Thank you.
- [37:15]
Interviewer (Sports/Business)
Claire. What role is technology playing in the BAL as far as engaging young people? Whether it's a social media strategy, whether it's AI, you know, a lot of sports now they talk about virtual reality so people can actually get an in person experience even if they're not Physically there. So from just a holistic standpoint, what role is tech playing in the league?
- [37:35]
Claire
Very important. We always say less than 1% of our fans will ever go to watch a live game. And this is not just BL NBA as well, 99% of them will watch us through a platform. And that platform is very much enabled by technology. Whether it's streaming, whether it's an app, whether it's, you know, enhancing your experience in, you know, broadcaster, whether it's TV or your laptop, your iPad, wherever you watch your phone, it's very much enabled by technology. And so because of that, we invest very much in enhancing the experience using technology of our games. But also this is also why as we think about the wider know touch points beyond, you know, viewing games or watching games, we also know that solutions and experiences of different types can actually make the experience much better. And this is why we invested in the triple double accelerator that you heard about earlier. Because we knew that if you're going to enhance the experience of a fan, you know, interacting with our games technology and continuously making that better, enhancing how you buy a ticket, how you get not certifications of games, how you, you know, how you scout talent across the continent, you know, merchandise, I think we saw examples of merchandise. There are very many aspects that can allow technology innovation to make it easier for funds to experience the game of basketball or sports in general. And this is why again, technology remains something that is a focus area. We always talk about sports, tech, basketball and technology. We brought in the triple double and I think that's always going to be important because again, one way to enhance the experience of our fund is using technology including new tools such as artificial intelligence. We know a number of teams are using artificial intelligence to really get data, analyze data and predict some of the performances of their teams and talent on court. So all this is extremely important. And technology remains a very close interactor with sports and basketball in particular.
- [39:36]
Moderator/Interviewer
It's been five years. I wonder how you see the next five years for the bal and the partnership with the NBA is interesting. I remember watching a young Luka Doncic playing against OKC because they went there for preseason. Is there a vision to have that kind of cross border situation where you got teams going to play in the States or maybe playing in the Euroleagues or in China so that more eyes can see the talent and see the.
- [40:02]
Interviewer (Sports/Business)
Growth of this league or teams come.
- [40:04]
Moderator/Interviewer
To Africa, teams coming to Africa, maybe even better.
- [40:08]
Claire
We don't rule that out. I mean, I think you had NBAs exploring a league in Europe, of course, there's NBA now. We have a league already operating five years in Africa. And, yes, we look forward to a future when we can have these regional competitions. It's not happening yet, but we don't rule out that in the future, and we hope that we can actually give that experience across different parts of the world.
- [40:30]
Interviewer (Sports/Business)
So, Luau, we gotta talk about that Olympic situation. So one of the. Almost one of the greatest upsets in the history of sports, not just basketball, you got. In my opinion, that's arguably the greatest team ever put together. When you have LeBron, you got Steph Curry, you got Kevin Durant, and, man, you guys took them to the wire. How was that moment for you? How was that moment for your country? How was that moment for, you know, the whole. Entire region? The whole entire continent?
- [41:03]
Luol Deng
No, it was. It was amazing, you know, honestly, to play against, you know, all these guys. First of all, it's a dream for our players to play against, you know, their heroes, their superstars and so on. And, you know, having LeBron, Steph and Durant, like you said, it made that team arguably one of the best teams, you know, ever put together, I think, for us. And, you know, when I look back at. Became more than a game, you know, it started with developing the team and putting a team together to compete, you know, and then we realized that if you look at the Olympics, only one African team makes it as of now. And, you know, I said that needs to change. I think it will change eventually. As you know, the teams are getting better. If you look at the World cup, it's five teams that make it out of 54 countries. So it's whoever goes is representing the whole continent and not just the country. And for us, it's such a young program that we put together, and all these guys can play, but they just never had the opportunity. And the amazing thing is, before I talk about the game, if we go back three years before that game, we took a team to Kenya. When we first put the federation together, we took a team to Kenya, and not a single person in that team had, you know, a job or playing professionally. That's three years removed from, you know, playing against the US and almost winning. But if you. If you look back, and I don't want to, you know, consistently bring that back, but if you look back at what took place that made that game so significant. It was almost. I look at it as, like, the crossover from what we've been hearing about the continent and what people have been thinking. And it really came at A time where. How. How do we use this game to change people's mindset? And I don't want to go into it, but, you know, certain individuals were speaking, you know, about the South Sudan team, but speaking about Africa in such a, you know, a negative way. But it showed, you know, it showed the lack of connection, but also, you know, just knowing what the continent or how far the continent has come. If you go back to some of the things they were saying, I never really. I didn't respond, but I took it as an opportunity. I didn't know that we would come close to winning that game. Or, you know, Amadou knows we won that game because there was a foul at the end. End. But, you know, we're not going to get into that. But, you know, the way everything happened, I think we used it as an opportunity to kind of let everybody know that one, you know, Africa is not what you've been, you know, told or what you've been seeing. This is like the turnaround for you to use your social media, use your network, learn more about the continent. Because some of these guys were speaking about, you know, not having shoes and so on, which is so stupid. But, you know, and also, you know, to come that close to winning that game. I remember in a locker room, we spoke about the Dream Team with Michael Jordan when they played Angola. And, you know, those tapes of that game, if you look back of, you know, obviously the Dream Team was the Dream Team. They were destroying everyone. But if you go back and really listen to the US Against Angola, it was just about, you know, an African team who barely practiced. Those things are not good for us in the continent. And those are the things that we're trying to change. As much as, you know, a lot of people don't speak about it or play it off. I think Africans are just tired of that image. And I think when we played the US and we almost won, people realize that times have changed. And also just for the basketball world, they realize that it's not just about Luo Deng or Hakeem or Manute or Embiid. There's a lot of talent in the continent and they catching up. Because it's been about Europe catching up, but Africa is catching up. So I'm just glad that we had the opportunity to use that game to promote the whole continent that, you know, we've arrived.
- [45:52]
Moderator/Interviewer
You have arrived, indeed. My final question is for you, Claire. And obviously we named some of the partners that you have, but what does the BAL look for in terms of partner? Obviously, this Innovation Summit. There's plenty of people here that want to be involved. What are you looking for in partnerships?
- [46:07]
Claire
Well, first of all, we're looking for partners that, you know, share the values that we have, which is to really elevate Africa, you know, through sports, entertainment, but also who look at elevating the youth of Africa and giving the youth of Africa an opportunity to excel, which is what we do through bal. And so we look for partners that not only have shared values with us, but also really want to reach the funds that we bring to them because we give them a platform for them to reach their funds. And so once we share those values, the rest is technical. It's discussing very technical elements of that. Yeah, so that's what we look for in partners. And if there's anybody here that wants to be part of this beautiful family that is bal, please, we're here to discuss with you. I think there's a lot of opportunities to do that in all categories. And again, when I say all categories, you know, it's not just about, you know, you know, sports or talent. I think the beauty about BAL is that we bring all sectors together. If you can think about any industry, we're in a hotel, you know, we are consuming, you know, digital services. You flew here, it's aviation you're going to eat. Agriculture is affected. Every sector, every industry you can think about somehow contributes or sports catalyzes. When I was in Ivory Coastline last week, somebody asked me, you know, about mining because I tried to show how every industry benefits from mining, I mean, from sports. And they kind of tried to challenge me about mining. And I told them no, you know, the trophy and the rings and the medals. Mining also has a role to play in sports as well. But let me just finish by saying I think that what we really want to see is more people coming to watch BAL games when they happen, because that's when you show the best of Africa. You see beautiful countries, you see that they have shoes, you see that they have clean roads, you see that they have electricity. You see that it's actually a very beautiful place in many ways, maybe even more beautiful than where you're coming from with all those biases. And so sports, I think, is one way to elevate the best of Africa.
- [48:17]
Podcast Host (True Crime)
The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
- [48:30]
Luol Deng
America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns.
- [48:42]
Podcast Host (True Crime)
Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. Short on time, but big on true crime On a recent episode of the podcast Hunting for Answers, I highlighted the story of 19 year old Lachey Duny. But she never knocked on that door. She never made it inside, and that text message would be the last time anyone would ever hear from her. Listen to Hunting for Answers from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [49:26]
Evan Ratliff
When news broke earlier this year that baby kj, a newborn in Philadelphia, had successfully received the world's first personalized gene editing treatment, it represented a milestone for both researchers and patients. But there's a gripping tale of discovery behind this accomplishment and its creators. I'm Evan Ratliff and together with biographer Walter Isaacson, we're delving into the story of Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna, the woman who's helped change the trajectory of humanity. Listen to on crispr, the Story of Jennifer Doudna with Walter isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [49:57]
Claire
Do we really need another podcast with a condescending finance bro trying to tell us how to spend our own money? No, thank you. Instead, check out Brown Ambition. Each week I your host Mandy Money gives you real talk, real advice with.
- [50:11]
Luol Deng
A heavy dose of I feel useless.
- [50:13]
Claire
Like on Fridays when I take your questions for the Baqa.
- [50:17]
Evan Ratliff
Whether you're trying to invest for your.
- [50:18]
Claire
Future, navigate a toxic workplace, I got you. Listen to Brown ambition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.