Masai Ujiri: Building Africa's Basketball Business Ecosystem

Masai Ujiri, President of the Toronto Raptors, aims to develop basketball in Africa as a dynamic economic force.

### Masai Ujiri's Vision for Basketball and Business in Africa
* 🏀  Masai Ujiri, President of the Toronto Raptors, is leading efforts to develop basketball in Africa, focusing on both **talent development** and creating a **sustainable sports business ecosystem**.
* 🌍  Ujiri believes in the potential of Africa's growing population and youthful demographic, aiming to change the perception of African basketball from a "**gimmick**" to a **serious global player**.
* 🏆  The success of African players in the NBA, such as **Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo**, highlights the continent's **basketball talent**.
* 👨‍💼  Ujiri's organization, Giants of Africa, has been instrumental in developing basketball infrastructure across the continent, with a goal of **building 100 courts**.
* 🏗️  Ujiri is also working on creating a basketball business ecosystem, starting with the construction of **Zaria Court in Rwanda**, which will include a **hotel, restaurants, and retail spaces**.
* 🌍  The project in Rwanda is part of a larger effort to **leverage sports for economic development**, with Ujiri emphasizing the need for **successful infrastructure to drive investment and growth**.
* 🏆  Ujiri's focus on **winning both on and off the court** is seen as crucial for the **long-term success of basketball in Africa**, as success in the NBA can **drive interest and investment in the sport**.
* 🌐  Ujiri's global perspective, influenced by his diverse background and experiences, shapes his vision for African basketball and business, aiming to **bring people together and create opportunities**.

A lot of people think about Africa, they think safari. They think, Oh, we have to donate $10 to people suffering. But you don't think about the rising population, the youthful population, the demographic, urbanization, cities becoming bigger. I want sports to grow. I want sports to be bigger because we have talent. Basketball has exploded as a global game and arguably its most fascinating frontier is Africa. For decades, the continent has produced show stopping talent from Hakeem Olajuwon. Olajuwon has David Robinson. To Joel Embiid. Here's Embiid. My goodness. He buries another triple! I saw Joel Embiid sitting down in a basketball camp in Africa. And that same kid will be the MVP of the league and will score 70 points in a game. [Announcer] For 70! It can't be seen as a gimmick anymore. It can't be seen as superficial anymore.

It's real. Yes, Wembanyama's dad is from the Congo. Giannis Antetokounmpo,
whether you call it Greece or you call it Nigeria, like he is global. And now it's arrived. For me, we have to develop it even more. Masai Ujiri has been one of the NBA's biggest players in developing the game in Africa. He spent nearly two decades already creating camps and clinics and literally building courts to foster talent across the continent. Oh! Hey! Now he's laying a path
to leverage basketball as a dynamic economic force
that can empower all of Africa. Now you are building a business. Now you are building an
ecosystem that has to sustain. Toronto's about as polar opposite a place you can get to begin telling the story of Africa's growing basketball business. But we're here to see Masai Ujiri, the President of the Toronto Raptors. At first glance, he may
appear like any NBA executive,

but it doesn't take long to find out he's a global power broker. This is my office. Couple of world leaders mixed in here? Yes, friends along the way. The Trudeaus, the Obamas, the Kagames. We were having a little
meeting in Lithuania where we're trying to figure out the Kawhi trade, I think here. Wow. That's a moment. I have one picture and
I remember telling him that I have the trade done
for Kawhi, and he's like, You ain't got [bleep]. That's amazing. Masai began his NBA career as a scout for the Orlando Magic in the early 2000s. He moved to the Denver Nuggets, eventually becoming that team's Executive Vice President
of Basketball Operations. Masai for me, I couldn't be
more thrilled that you're here. Welcome, and it's all yours. And in 2013, Masai was named President of the Raptors.

We're at the Raptors practice facility, and this is where we call home. It's where the players come daily. Our front office, coaching staff, medical staff are all based here. We all try to innovate as much as we can, and there's always somebody that beats you in the next year. But we looked all over the world at practice facilities, football, soccer, college basketball, and the flow matters, you know? The feeling of the players really matter. Training complexes are part of the unseen infrastructure basketball, whether it's a video wall that displays shot analytics to players in real time or the very specific chairs in the locker room. Everything here is aimed to give players the belief that they can win. And in 2019, for the Raptors and Masai, they did just that. [Announcer] Well, and that's it. There's a new NBA champion. And it's a team from Toronto, Canada. We wanted to win in Toronto, and we have won in Toronto.

Yeah! Here we go, here's the big guy right here. [Jason]. There it is.
[Masai]. I never talk about him or do it 'cause I want another one. I don't come around this. I'm doing it for you. Never worn a ring, never worn a t-shirt. Never seen the videos. Never worn a hat. Yeah, I will not do it
'til I get the second one. Masai might not have worn a t-shirt, but after winning, he did
join several of his players in wearing their native country flags. If I go back to a moment with Pascal, I wore the Nigerian flag. He wore the Cameroonian flag and I think of what it's
meant, yeah, to African youth. You know, to see this happen in real life, really, really happen to people that grew up on the continent. Our dreams were the NBA. We fulfilled it and even reached the highest level, like together.

This moment was also a big deal for the NBA. In 2001, the NBA, along with FIBA, launched Basketball Without Borders, with a strong focus on Africa. Since then, the league has helped fund even more programs, including Giants of Africa, founded and run by Masai. All of them help promote the game through various camps and development programs, aiming to find young talented players and give them a pathway to one day play for both the NBA or the WNBA. And while these programs have succeeded multiple times over bringing players into the league, Masai's turning his attention to help create that same proof of success for the business of sports on the continent. You've been working for more than two decades now on Giants of Africa and all of these projects. Do you feel that the rest of the NBA is buying in, and not just from the league perspective, but other owners, other executives, are they committed to this global growth do you think.

to the extent that they need to be? I think they are. And I think we need to educate more too. There's so much going on, you
know, like on the continent. One out of every four
people, I think by 2050, around the world will be from Africa. When you think about entertainment, when you think about music, sports, this whole ecosystem, we need infrastructure on the continent. So just like the Raptors' facility is all about helping players
believe they can win, Masai believes African countries need to see successful infrastructure to believe in the business of basketball. All people need to do
is see something happen. So the main step now for us is to build this infrastructure
around the continent. It's great to see this. And great to see the energy,
great to see the kids. You know, like they
have fun, they compete. You know, they feel good about it. 'Cause this is kinda basketball
at its essence, right?

It's grassroots. It's the start. I know these people have
incredible journeys ahead of them. You know that. I think of this space and this experience, they'll always remember this. To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Giants of Africa convened
a massive festival in Kigali, Rwanda, a week that comprised of lots of basketball, a court unveiling, a big community service day, and a sold-out concert featuring some of Africa's biggest musical acts. Please welcome from the Toronto Raptors, Precious Achiuwa. It's a real full-circle moment. Just being able to be up here speaking and a couple years ago I was a camper. This is amazing. For the young players, it was a combination of
seeing high-quality hoops played in top-notch facilities and seeing actual pros whose
own careers started nearby. That puts their potential
futures in a whole new light. And for Masai, it's a way to attract new investment to Africa.

You're all in action here. Nice to see you. Things are good? You should be playing, man. I see you're all in it, all coaching. I wish. I don't know if you can beat Nigeria. All the best, but yeah, good luck. He's the founder of Shopify. Oh really? Yes, that's Scott Lake. He's built out of the 30
courts, well about 28 maybe, he's built about 12 of them for us. A lot of people, you know,
like want to do stuff here, but not many people see it. So you know, like you really have to explain to them what you do. If you don't come and see it, like no matter how much you read, you don't feel it like you being here. Now you can talk about it a different way. Rwanda was chosen to host a festival for a very specific reason. It has gone to great
lengths to position itself

As a new commercial and cultural gateway to Africa, Masai has worked with the public and private sectors there to showcase basketball as a critical and effective tool for economic development. Rwanda has not only been one of Africa's fastest-growing economies, but the IMF projects that in 2024, it will have the seventh-highest GDP growth in the world. To better understand how all this connects to basketball, I met up with my colleague Jennifer Zabasajja, who covers the continent for Bloomberg, documenting the biggest stories in business and finance. Is this your first African market experience, did you say? My first African market experience. Oh my God. Are you ready? I think so. You can come here and basically find everything as we're kind of seeing. I like mangoes. What do you like? I like oranges. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. What's your sense of why Giants of Africa ended up in Rwanda for this festival?

So I think there's a
few different reasons. Most people would say,
though, that Rwanda has more than any other country on the continent, really tried to make
itself the hub of sports. Well, we've seen that
with President Kagame, and really sort of encouraging sports. President Paul Kagame has dominated Rwandan
politics since his rebel army liberated the country
following the 1994 genocide. And over that time, the economy has grown more than five times over. However, critics say that
success has come at a cost. Kagame has effectively
outlawed political opposition. And a 2022 US State Department report cited credible reports
against the government of killings, kidnappings, and violence. Despite these allegations,
Kagame has in recent years pushed forward policies
that have opened Rwanda to the rest of the world, focusing mostly on growing
tourism and foreign investment. It's a country of 13 million people.

And so, what's been interesting about Rwanda is it's really sort of been a test case in some way of the role that the private sector can come in and bring investment into a country as small as it is and drive development. And we're seeing that. I mean, we're driving around and we're seeing it. Sports has been a major part of that plan. The country's Visit Rwanda campaign has sponsorship deals with both Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain, each worth roughly $10 million annually. And Paris Saint-Germain has set up a football academy in the heart of Kigali, offering coaching and access to modern facilities to the youth of Rwanda. The aim of this training center is to identify potential talents and make them progress and compete with other teams. It sort of plays into a lot of this narrative that we're seeing a lot of people trying to change about Africa, not just being a place for exports, right?

Exports of talent. We're thinking about athletes, exports of raw materials. Considering how rich this continent is and make this be the place where players, where people want to stay and help it thrive. Creating true businesses that can operate within Africa is what Masai is most interested in. BK Arena. And BK Arena, a sports facility opened in 2019, was the main venue for the Giants of Africa Festival. And it may be one of the best examples. This arena hosts all kinds of events, whether it's the Basketball Africa League, whether it's local leagues, whether it's conferences. There's so many things going on and we have to get better with this. And government people have to see that these are money makers. These are job creators. This is the ecosystem of sports and how it can grow. This thing should be working 365 days a year. And that's the economic driver, that's creating jobs. But that's bringing people together, that's bringing peace.

There's so many things that sports brings, and we don't even understand it. During his time in Rwanda, Masai joined President Kagame to break ground on his new venture, Zaria Court. We have to stop seeing sports as recreation on the continent. We have to see it as competition, and we have to see it as a business. Zaria Court is set to be placed here, within sight of both BK Arena and the newly renovated Amahoro National Stadium. Zaria Court will feature a boutique hotel, restaurants, and retail spaces, aimed to create an economic ecosystem around Kigali Sports Complex. It's a place for them to go drink beer, a place to go eat. This is what people want. There's a hotel for them to stay close by. For me, when you think about the whole thing, you're trying to create business, you're trying to create lifestyle, you're trying to create atmosphere that's peaceful and conducive for people to grow.

Part of that ecosystem on the
other side in the west, right? When I look at Scotiabank Arena, I look at LA Live and
I look at the hotels, the restaurants, the
shops, the sports bars. You know, all those
things around those place create like an atmosphere
where people can grow. And grow in a business sense. Masai hopes that it's only the first Zaria Court on the continent. We've talked about it in Senegal. We've talked about it in Kenya. We've talked about it in
Republic of Benin, in Nigeria. We're usually a copycat
like continent, right? When one person does it, the
next person wants to do it. I'm hoping that other
countries copy this ecosystem that we're seeing here,
an arena, a stadium, and watch the surrounding. You have a lot of influence across the NBA and across global basketball, but you know, you're not
sort of a big wig in the NBA.

What gave you the confidence
that like you could do this, that you could affect this change? Maybe the best thing I ever discovered, like that helped me in my
career, was the confidence in the continent and the confidence in the talent in the continent. And if we grew the game, the
spotlight will start to come to this continent, but we have to grow it. That's one of the courts we built. Yeah, it's beautiful. I mean, that's pretty cool. Yeah, so what do you
think when you past that? When I went past the first
time, I was like, Wow. You know, the meaning is... You don't even understand it, until like something like this. It's just a Saturday and
there's just lots of, tons of kids playing, and
maybe somewhere, somehow, this court inspired that
person a little bit. I'm gonna find a way to get to 100. Masai's up to 29.

of his stated goal of 100 courts. Growing the basketball infrastructure, as well as the sports
business infrastructure, will continue to face economic
and political challenges. But you couldn't find a more
global thinker than Masai, something he's reminded
of at every Toronto game. It's the only international
home court for the NBA. Well, my mom is from Kenya. My dad is from Nigeria. I was born in England, just lived there for only like nine months
before we moved back to Africa. My wife is half Guinea, half Sierra Leone. My kids were born in Canada and half Canadian and
American citizenship. So I don't know if everybody wants to see like how many passports we have. [Jason] Spread 'em out on the table. [Masai] Yeah, spread 'em out on the table. Well, we're the only team that is situated outside of America. I think we have to embrace that. That's what We the North was.

You know, that's what Raptors here, everywhere around the globe is. For me, there's that unique representation. A lot of people need a voice and a lot of people need representation. Yeah, and I think about it that way. God has blessed me with this, to be from this continent, to have this opportunity that the NBA has given me, to know all these world leaders, all these people, to have incredible friends, whether it's in communities or anywhere. And somehow, I have to bring people together. Yeah, that's why the festival is bringing people together. You talked about world leaders and that is so much on display. I would love to show you a clip that we have with one of those world leaders because it speaks to the sort of sociopolitical, sociocultural importance of this league. It is a remarkable space. It's a community space, a library, a computer lab, a vocational center, a football pitch.

And I'm very happy to see
there's also a basketball court. So thank you, Masai. Thank you, Giants of Africa. So that's kinda cool. That's awesome. That's awesome. He's so incredible,
incredible friend to have. But actually, being on a court with President Barack Obama in Kenya... He's half Kenyan and I'm half Kenyan. It just meant the whole world to me. But I saw what it meant to
the youth, to the people. It's just meant so much,
even for Giants of Africa. You know, like to have a part of this. And he loves basketball. He's a certified baller. Oh, he's a certified baller. He's a certified GM. He's a certified everything. I like this game. There are a couple people
I know that just affected the world in a crazy
way for us Black people. Venus and Serena, what they did
for young girls in the world

and Black people around the
world, to believe in sports, to believe that they can do
something really incredible. I think Muhammad Ali did it first. You know, like in how he was. It was a different era. When it goes back to history, George Floyd changed a
lot of things for people. And then Barack Obama, what he did. I think it really gave a lot of us confidence in what we can do. At the height of his team's
success on the court, Masai himself would become part of a larger conversation about race. Please, stay off the court. Please, please, don't. When you talk about George Floyd and you talk about that time, it's an easy step to an
incident that happened to you that you then turned and have
spoken very publicly about, that was about more than you. And obviously, the shove
that happened in 2019, and how do you think about that now and how you have used it.

to try and have some
benefit for other people? In some ways, I'm a privileged person that was put in that position. If you look at it that way, I'm the President of the Toronto Raptors. But you think about how
many people go through that, that don't have my position. Maybe you are not wearing a suit that day. They're judged wrongly. They're prosecuted wrongly. And that bothers me because I knew I had not done anything wrong. For one year, I didn't
have a good feeling. Yeah, for one year, I
started to doubt myself. Not myself as a person,
myself with that incident. I started to think, Okay,
did I hit him first? And now I feel it's all... And I knew if I have not
done something wrong, then I would have that fight, right, that had the ability to
get lawyers and fight? How many people have that ability? Not many.

The Giants of Africa festival ended with one banger of a concert, headlined by marquee
Afrobeats artist, Davido, who no surprise, is a friend of Masai. Thank you. We love you, Rwanda. We're be glad you, Rwanda. Rwanda is home. So having watched you in Kigali, you're the impresario, the mastermind of
everything that's going on. It's easy to see your
impact when you're there. How do you from here, ensure
that that is keeping going between your day to day
here and Giants of Africa? There's only one word, winning. It's the Pascal Siakams. You know, like it's the OG Anunobys. It's the Joel Embiids. You know, like when you
see this actually go from basketball camp to NBA, All NBA player, All-Star NBA player,
a 70 point NBA player, a championship NBA player.

That's real. But I have to win here. That gives me the opportunity
to grow the game globally, in Africa, in Nigeria,
and all over the world. 'Cause winning creates opportunity? Is that the idea? 100%. Yeah, 100%. You win on the court,
you win off the court. And as you do that,
you bring people along.

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The Growing Influence of Basketball in Africa

Basketball is rapidly growing in Africa, with the continent producing top talent like Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Masai Ujiri has been instrumental in developing the game in Africa through camps, clinics, and building courts.

As the President of the Toronto Raptors, he has played a significant role in the team's success and in advancing the infrastructure of basketball.

Masai Ujiri's Impact on African Basketball

Masai Ujiri, the president of the Toronto Raptors, has been instrumental in promoting basketball in Africa through programs like Giants of Africa.

He believes that building infrastructure in African countries is crucial for the business of basketball to succeed.

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Giants of Africa organized a festival in Kigali, Rwanda, featuring basketball, community service, and a concert with top musical acts, aiming to inspire young players and attract investment to the continent.

Rwanda's Transformation into a Hub for Sports and Investment

Rwanda is positioning itself as a commercial and cultural gateway to Africa, with a rapidly growing economy and a projected high GDP growth.

The country's president, Paul Kagame, has been criticized for a lack of political opposition and human rights abuses, but has also focused on opening Rwanda to the world for tourism and investment.

The private sector's involvement, including sports and sponsorship deals with European football clubs, is driving development and showcasing Rwanda as more than just a place for exports.

Masai Ujiri's Vision for Sports and Business Growth in Africa

Masai Ujiri aims to create a thriving sports ecosystem in Africa, focusing on the economic potential of athletics and the development of local talent.

The BK Arena, home to the Giants of Africa Festival, and the upcoming Zaria Court are prime examples of his vision to build sports facilities that drive business and community growth.

Ujiri is confident in the continent's talent and is determined to put Africa on the map in the global sports industry, with a focus on inspiring the younger generation.

Masai Ujiri's Global Impact and Representation

Masai Ujiri, the president of the Toronto Raptors, emphasizes the team's international representation, reflecting his own diverse background and the global nature of the NBA.

He is dedicated to bringing people together and providing representation, as seen in his work with Giants of Africa and his interactions with world leaders.

Ujiri also acknowledges the impact of prominent figures like Barack Obama, Venus and Serena Williams, Muhammad Ali, and George Floyd in inspiring confidence and driving social change.

Masai Ujiri's Impact as President of the Toronto Raptors

Masai Ujiri reflects on his privilege and the wrongful judgment he faced, leading to self-doubt.

He emphasizes the importance of using his position to benefit others and to fight for what is right.

Ujiri also highlights the connection between winning in basketball and creating opportunities to grow the game globally, particularly in Africa.