Maseno School and Uper Hill school basketball players during secondary school games. [Photo/Kenya Page]
The Africa city challenge basketball tournament kicks off in Nairobi in June 11th – 16th.
The 5-day event that will be held at Nyayo Indoor Stadium will feature 6 teams from 6 East African city basketball powerhouses competing in 11 games that will be televised Live on Kwese Free Sports.
The teams drawn from the East African cities of Nairobi, Mogadishu, Juba, Kampala, Mombasa and Dar es Salaam are comprised of the top male All-Star players from each city teams – all competing for cash prizes amounting to over Ksh 1.5 Million. The top three teams will walk away with a cash prize between Ksh. 250,000 and Ksh. 620,000.
Participating teams are expected to start jetting into the country from 9th of June 2017.
Ahead of their arrival, Tournament Director, Michael Finley, enthuses, “This will be the best sporting weekend in the history of East African basketball and the players are all psyched and ready to impress.”
He added, “We support the game’s cultural diplomacy between all countries, in this case East Africa. It will be a monumental feat in the history of East African basketball to include the countries of Somalia and South Sudan.”
The winners from the Africa City Challenge and selected city teams from West and Southern Africa will later be invited to compete in the inaugural ACC-AFRICA tournament.
This event will take place annually and is positioned to take advantage of the growing basketball interest amongst Africans between the ages of 16 and 35.
As the exclusive broadcast partner Kwesé Free Sports, will provide live coverage for each of the games. For the first time basketball fans across the continent can watch East Africa’s best basketball teams battle it out daily as two live games will air on the channel each evening.
The schedule is as follows:
· Sunday 11 June (2 Live games to kick off tournament)· Monday-Wednesday 12-14 June: 6 Live Games (2 games per evening)· Friday 16 June: 2 Live Games (Semi-Finals and ACC Championship Game)
The establishment of Inter-City teams by Africa City Challenge will feed lovers of basketball with charged action and great quality entertainment, creating amicable rivalries and a sports competition that even non-basketball fans can buy into. The tournament will also put a focus on younger players (18-30) years old as opposed to the national teams.
At the moment, all East African cities have a major league that competes every year but they are no African basketball tournaments that offer prize money as an incentive for players to compete. The Africa City Challenge seeks to change this by supporting Inter-cities competition and offering consistent sponsorship.
During the tournament, Kenyan king of hip hop Khaligraph Jones and world renowned DJ Joe Mfalme will be headlining performances of the night. The two will be joined by MC Samora who will also be performing on the last day of the tournament (16th of June 2017).