Africa is Balling 🏀

Hey, Caleb here 👋🏾

Today, we’re diving into basketball in Africa (specifically Kenya) and a company betting big on its growth.

We’re also betting big on this company.

So, this is also an investment memo for our next Tech Safari Syndicate deal:

Twende Sports.

In this edition, we look at Africa’s sports and basketball opportunity - and how Twende Sports is building the perfect brand to capitalize on it.

Alright, let’s go!

Last year, history was made at the Olympics.

South Sudan — a tiny, war-torn country — almost took down the USA in basketball at the playoffs, scoring 100 points against 101.

This was the ultimate David v Goliath sports match.

Before the game started, South Sudan was laughed at by pundits for having no shot at a win.

But they gave the best basketballers alive — Steph Curry and Lebron James — a run for their money.

It was a massive signal to the world:

Africa’s sporting talent is world-class.

And it’s not our first time showing up big in basketball.

• In 2019, the Toronto Raptors won the NBA title with the help of Pascal Siakam (a Cameroonian) and Serge Ibaka (a Congolese). And the president of the Raptors - Masai Ujiri - is also African.

• In 2023, Adama Sanogo, a Malian basketballer became the first African-born player to win NCAA’s Most Outstanding Player Award in 40 years.

• And last year, Nigeria’s female basketball team was ranked eighth in the world

It’s obvious..

African players are taking the world stage

15 years ago, Joel Embiid was playing basketball on cracked concrete courts in Cameroon.

Today, he’s casually breaking records in the NBA.

• He led the Philadelphia 76ers (a top NBA team) to the semi-finals.

• He’s the first international player to win a title for scoring the highest points per game.

• And in 2023, he won the highly coveted NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) award.

Africa is teeming with basketball talent like Joel. Other global breakouts include

Hakeem Olajuwon started in Lagos before playing in the NBA.

Luol Deng went from a refugee camp to playing for the Chicago Bulls.

And today.. 10% of players in the NBA are either African-born or have African parents.

But here’s the kicker:

For every Embiid or Olajuwon, there are thousands of kids with crazy talent who never get the chance. Why?

Because African basketball infrastructure sucks.

Going pro is really hard - even with great talent.

Local teams don’t pay players enough (or at all).

Training facilities are old and broken.

And the local leagues? They’re low on funds, viewers and popularity.

That means talent flows out of Africa, money flows away - and local teams never stand a chance to build their brands.

But it’s starting to change.

The $1 Billion Play

In 2010, the NBA set up an outpost in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Their goal? Run the Basketball Without Borders Program in Africa.

The program was a training ground for African young basketball talent.

Joel Embiid and Luol Deng came through the program and turned into NBA stars (remember who landed MVP in 2023?).

But the NBA wanted to double down on Africa.

So in 2021, they set up NBA Africa as a separate entity and brought in all-star investors.

People like Barack Obama, Luol Deng, and major African private equity investors — like Helios —bought in.

It’s clear why:

Africa is a massive, untapped market for sports.

And after African players perform on the world stage, NBA Africa wants to turn basketball into Africa’s new favourite sport.

Their blueprint is solid:

• Build stadiums: State-of-the-art facilities to host games.

• Create pipelines: Programs to scout and train the best players locally through academies in Dakar, Rwanda, and South Africa.

• Grow the audience: Through streaming, sponsorships, and partnerships.

Their best move though — partnering with FIBA (the International Basketball Federation) to build Africa’s own league: the Basketball Africa League (BAL).

Through the BAL, local athletes can compete on a bigger stage, build better sports careers, and catch the world’s eye.

All while playing ball locally.

In 2021, NBA Africa raised $100 million from investors and was valued at $1 billion.

So there’s a lot of money (and expectations) riding on basketball’s growth in Africa.

But at the heart of this takeoff are the basketball teams.

The ones that keep the players playing and the fans watching.

And that’s where Twende Sports comes in.

From cracked concrete to championships

In 2023, four friends came together to start a new kind of basketball team.

Between them, they had a former pro basketball player, a former National rugby player, a sports team manager, and a former management executive with sports startup experience.

They had seen the wild difference between the games they watched in Kenya, and how professional basketball really worked.

So, they started Twende Sports: a sports brand on a mission to build Africa’s biggest basketball franchise - from Nairobi, Kenya

The game plan: buy a small local team - and turn it into a professional one.

They found the Nairobi City Thunder, which had trouble funding itself and hadn't won a title in 24 years.

And they got to work.

1) First, they hired professional coaches.

Most teams had informally trained coaches.

But Twende Sports went for the best and hired Bradley Ibs, an American athlete turned basketball coach.

Bradley had a Masters in Coaching from Concordia University, training college students in the US who went pro.

When he joined, he brought all of that to the team.

2) They paid their players

For most players across Africa, playing for a local club is a labor of love.

Twende switched that up and gave their team professional contracts.

This meant their team could take their basketball career seriously and focus on the game.

3) They built an ecosystem of fans

Games don’t happen in isolation. They need a crowd.

So Twende built a community of superfans around their games.

• They grew the Nairobi City Thunder’s social media following from 2,000 people to 22,300

• And they have a WhatsApp group for top fans where they engage and have conversations

All according to their plan of building Africa’s number-one basketball brand.

Add up a great coach, paid players and an ecosystem of superfans and you get The Nairobi City Thunder - a basketball team that:

• Has played over 50 games and only lost one

• Became the first team to win the Kenyan Basketball Premier League title with a 29-0 undefeated record.

• Made it through two international tournaments to get into the BAL qualifiers (Africa’s version of the NBA)

• And won! Winning a spot in 2025’s Basketball Africa League

This is the equivalent of playing in the high school league, beating everyone, and then getting to play with the big dogs in the NBA. And all in 18 months.

With Nairobi City Thunder, Twende Sports is building one of Africa’s most promising basketball teams.

So it's worth asking…

How big could Ball in Africa get?

In developed economies like the USA, sports franchises are cash machines.

And they yield around 15 to 20% ROI each year.

Last year, the total value of all the franchises in the NBA was put at $138 billion.

The teams make money in many ways - ticket sales, merch, franchising, TV rights and many more.

And when we zoom over to Africa, the continent is set for a sports boom over the next decade.

When you add up all the revenue streams in African sports, you land on $12 billion generated in 2024.

In the next decade (by 2035), this is predicted to hit $20 billion.

A big part of that will come from basketball.

Last year alone, NBA viewership rose 41% in Africa.

Games were streamed over 140 million times, with a total of 6 million watch hours.

And NBA stores in South Africa saw a 150% increase in sales.

And as NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in 2024:

And as a preview of how big this can be with the right investment, we can see the European Premier League (EPL) three-year TV deal with Multichoice to broadcast across Sub-Saharan Africa.

That deal is worth $383 million.

If the Basketball Africa League gets big - big deals like EPL’s could be on the table for it.

So, if there was ever a great time to get into African basketball, it’s now.

While Africa is a huge continent, Nairobi is one of the best places to build a basketball brand.

• Nairobi is in the top 10 biggest markets in Africa

• It’s an international city - and is connected to the global sports scene

• And it can ride the game’s local popularity to build a better brand than most teams can.

Last year, the deputy commissioner of NBA Africa announced that they’re building 1,000 outdoor basketball courts across Africa.

100 of them will be in Kenya alone - meaning a surge of talent will be available in the coming years.

With basketball taking off in Africa and Kenya, Twende Sports has a lot of opportunity to build the homegrown basketball brand.

What’s the catch?

Despite its wins, there are a few risks that we’re thinking about that Twende Sports will have to navigate to get to the next level:

1. Ticket Pricing: Last year, tickets to the BAL semi-finals in Kigali sold for as low as 1,600 Frw ($1.15). In the US, tickets can cost $85 on average. That’s a big gap in ticket revenue.

2. Reaching mass market: African incomes are generally low, which means ticket and merch sales will not be enough to scale revenue.

3. Competition: Despite its smashing success in the Kenyan League, the Nairobi City Thunder is still a new team on the continental stage, and it’s going up against veterans.

But Twende Sports has a few things going for it - starting from its team.

Twende is built to win

Twende Sports has a stacked team, starting with its four founders:

Colin Rasmussen, the CEO, is a seasoned executive with 20 years of experience managing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of projects worldwide.

And he’s spent the past five years working in East African sports.

Sandra Kimokoti, the Chief Commercial Officer, is a strategy consultant who served as the Chief of Staff of the National Cycling League in the US.

She also played for Kenya’s National rugby team.

Kooshin Diriye - the Team General Manager - is a former Somali national basketball team player who also played in the Kenyan Basketball Federation Premier League for 10 years.

Stephen Domingo, the Strategy and Basketball Operations Advisor, is a pro-basketball player with experience playing in the US, Europe and Africa, including being Captain of the Nigerian national team.

Twende also has baller investors like Olugbenga Agboola (GB) — Founder and CEO of Flutterwave — and Kent Thiry, the former CEO of DaVita.

Coupled with advisors who give support on strategy as they build out East Africa’s basketball ecosystem, the team has what it takes to win - both on and off the court.

Africa is Balling 🏀

Africa’s been sitting on untapped sports potential for decades.

Now, with the NBA’s heavy investment in Africa and the growing local sports scene, the timing couldn’t be better.

Twende Sports is riding the wave, building the infrastructure, and creating a team that could dominate African basketball.

What do you think? Could Twende Sports become the Chicago Bulls of Africa?

Let us know here.

To invest with us, apply to join Tech Safari’s syndicate here.

That’s it for this week. See you on Sunday for a breakdown of this' week’s top stories in African tech.

Cheers,

Caleb & The Tech Safari Team

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