A unique platform dedicated to the exceptional African cultural power including sports featuring young talents, senior officials, sports business executives, investors, and legends from the sports industry

DAKAR, SENEGAL – February 28, 2022 – The Atlantic Council and SEED Project announced today the inaugural Sports Business Forum. In partnership with the Agence Sénégalaise de Promotion Touristique, the Forum being held on Friday, March 4, at the Musée des Civilisations Noires in Dakar, Senegal from 3:00pm to 6:30pm GMT. The Atlantic Council is a US nonpartisan organization that galvanizes transatlantic engagement with allies and partners to shape solutions to global challenges. The SEED Project uses education and basketball to develop the next generation of African leaders. Together the two organizations prioritize the African youth trough the  Forum, which will bring together dynamic leaders to support the emergence of a thriving sports industry in Africa – creating an growing environed for investment and economic growth.

A day ahead of the opening of the Basketball Africa League Season 2 in Dakar, the Sports Business Forum will feature speakers and honored guests including members of African governments, such as Senegal’s Minister of Sports, H.E. Mr. Matar Ba, NBA top leadership such as Mark Tatum, Gbemisola Abudu, and Masai Ujiri, private investors from Samba Bathily to Madani Tall, legends such as El Hadj Diouf, Dikembe Mutombo, Clarisse Machanguana, and Yannick Noah. Senegalese musical artist, Dieyla will close the event. The Forum will advance sustainable sports industry solutions across Africa to create jobs, build infrastructure and foster a cultural soft power all around the world.

The Forum comes at an extraordinary time, marked by the victory of the Lions at the Africa Cup of Nations, the inauguration of the impressive Olympic Stadium Abdoulaye Wade by the President of Senegal and Chair of the African Union, and the launch of the 2nd edition of the Basketball Africa League in Dakar, whose President, Amadou Gallo Fall, is also the Founder of the Forum’s partner, the SEED Project. According to the United Nations, the continent of Africa has the youngest population in the world, with 70% of its people under 30 years of age. Every year, 10 to 12 million jobs need to be created to support the influx of young people arriving in the labor market. Sports can be an essential answer to that opportunity.

Sport has long been regarded as a by-product, and not as an engine, of development. However, sport is a vital tool for development and, therefore, requires strong consideration and committed partnerships in its connection to economic development, social and human development, and peace” – Ambassador Rama Yade, Senior Director, Atlantic Council Africa Center and Former French-Senegalese Minister for Sports.

To register as a virtual participant at the Sports Business Forum and to view the agenda, please visit here.

The Sports Business Forum will livestreamed and open to media. Media wishing to attend in person should register here to be accredited. To participate virtually register here.

The Atlantic Council’s Africa Center works to promote dynamic geopolitical partnerships with African nations and to redirect US and European policy priorities toward strengthening security and bolstering economic growth and prosperity on the continent. The Dakar Sports Business Forum will launch the Africa Center’s 2022 Creative Industries Program, which follows the successful 2021 Africa Creative Industries Summit at the Smithsonian Museum of African Art and the Financial Engineering Task Force.

For further questions, please contact press@atlanticcouncil.org.