As International Basketball Federation (FIBA) continues to grow in the esports space with their NBA2k open tournament, participation from more countries continues to increase.
The FIBA Esports open is currently running its 3rd edition and following the success of previous editions the Open III is featuring 60 national teams from all over the world. The tournament started April 16th and runs till May 9th.
The tournament continues its goal of inclusion and diversity in global esports and has Africa participating for the second time with its own conference. Open II had only Gabon and Ivory Coast taking part but this time, 6 teams from the continent participated.
Open II champions, Cote d”Ivoire along side Egypt, Tunisia, Madagascar, Togo and Gabon where divided into 2 groups to battle it out for a place in the playoffs.
After 3 days of thrilling action, Egypt emerged winners of the African conference. The new champions edged out previous champions, Cote d’ Ivorie 2 games to 1.
Many stakeholders believe it is a welcomed development seeing African conference increase from 2 nations to 6.
More African countries were invited but due to challenges with their local basketball federations, the deadlines were not met. With such challenges, esports stakeholders in the region are hoping their basketball federations do the needful to enable participation in the future.
