ESPN, Bell Media acquire Richard Brown’s Basketball Africa League docuseries

Origin: The Story of the Basketball Africa League will be available on Crave in Canada

ESPN in the US and Canada’s Bell Media have picked up the rights to docuseries Origin: The Story of the Basketball Africa League, which premiered on Monday at Toronto International Film Festival.

Produced by Richard Brown’s Passenger and Fremantle, the four-parter follows the creation and launch of the Basketball Africa League (BAL), a pan-African professional basketball league launched in partnership with the International Basketball Federation, featuring 12 top club teams from across 54 countries.

The league represents the National Basketball Association (NBA)’s first collaboration to operate a league outside North America.

Interviewees include Barack Obama, former Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri, BAL president Amadou Gallo Fall, retired basketball players Joakim Noah and Dikembe Mutombo, artist J Cole, NBA commissioner Adam Silver and current NBA players Stephen Curry and Pascal Siakam.

Scotland-born Brown, whose credits include True Detective, Catch-22 and Outlaw King, is executive producer, writer and co-director of the project, with Ujiri, Omotoso, Tebogo Malope and Fisher Stevens (Beckham) also among the exec producers.

In Canada, the series will be available on streamer Crave and sports network TSN, while ESPN has the exclusive US rights. Fremantle is handling global sales.

Origin: The Story of the Basketball Africa League is part of Toronto International Film Festival’s TV-focused Primetime programme. Last week, BBC One drama Reunion, which was also screened in the Primetime section, was acquired by Showtime in the US and the CBC in Canada.