masai: a lot of people think of africa and think safari. they think oh, we have to donate $10 for people suffering. you don't think about 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 it's most fascinating frontier is africa. for decades, the continent has produced showstopping talent, from hakeem olajuwon to joel em >> embiid. he buries another tr masai: i saw joel embiid sitting at a basketball camp in africa. that same kid would be the m.v.p. of the league and will score 70 points in a game. it can't be seen as a gimmick anym it can't be seen as superficial it is real. wembanyama's dad is from the congo. yanis antetokounmpo, whether you call tigress or nigeria, he is global. and now it's arrived. for me, we

have to develop it even more. jason: masai ujiri has been one of the nba's bigges players in developing the game in africa. he's spent nearly two decades already building camps and clinics and building courts to foster talent across the contin now, he is laying out a path to leverage basketball as a dynami economic force that can empower all of africa. masai: now you are building a business. now you building an ecosystem that has to sustain. jason: toronto is about as polar opposite a place you can get to begin to tell the story of afri growing basketball business. but we are here to see masai ujiri, the president of the toronto ra at first glance, he may appear like any nba executive, but it doesn't take long to find out h is a global powerbroker. masai: this is my office. jason: a

couple of world leaders mixed i. masai: yes, friends along the way. the trudeaus, the obamas, we will be having a little meeting in lithuania where we are trying to figure out the kawhi trade here. jason: wow. that's a moment. masai: i have one picture, and i remember telling him that i have the trade done for kawhi. he is like, you ain't got [beep]. [la jason: that's amazing. masai began his nba career as a scout for the orlando magic in the early 2000's, and moved to the denver nuggets, becoming that team's executive vice president of basketball operations. >> masai, for me, ircouldn't be more thrilled that had you're h welcome, and it is all yours. jason: and in 2013, masai was n

president of the raptors. masai: we're at the raptors practice facility, where we cal it is where the players come da front office, coaching staff, medical staff are all based her we all try to innovate as much as we can, and there is always somebody that beats you the nex year, but we looked all over the world at practice facilities, football, soccer, college basketball, and the flow matter the feeling of the players really matter. jason: training complexes are part of the unsee infrastructure of basketball. whether it is a video wall that displays shot analytics for players in real time, or the specific chairs in the locker room, everything here is aimed to give players the belief they can win. and in 2019 for the raptors and masai, they did just that. >>

that's it. there is a new nba c and it is a team from toronto, masai: we wanted to win in toronto, and we won in toronto! here we go. here's the big guy right here. jason: there it is. masai: i never talk about him because i want another one. i never wore a ring, never wore a t-shirt, never saw the videos, never worn the hat. i will not do it until i get the second on jason: masai might not have wor a t-shirt, but after winning he did join several of his players in wearing their native masai: if i go back to a moment with pascal and the nigerian flag, he wore the cameroon flag, and i think of what it's meant to african youth, to see this happen in real life. really, really happen to people that grew up on the continent,

had dreams of the nba. we fulfilled it and even reached the highest level, like, togeth jason: this moment was also a big moment 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. they promote the game through camps and development programs, aiming to find young talent and give them a pathway to play for both the nba or the wnba. while these programs have succeeded multiple times over bringing players int league, masai is turning his attention to create that succes for the business of sports on the continent. you have been working for two decades now on giants of africa and all of these projects. do you feel the rest of the nba is buying in? and not just from the league perspective, but other owners

and executives. are they committed to this global growth, do you think, to the extent that they need to be masai: i think they are. and i think we need to educate more too. there is so much going on on the continent. one out of every four people in the world, i think, by 2050 will be from a when you think about entertainment, when you think about music, sports, this whole ecosystem, we need infrastructure on the continent jason: just like the raptors facility is article about helping players believe they ca masai believes african countrie need successful infrastructure to believe in the business of b masai: all people need to do is see something happen. so the main step now for us is to build this infrastructure ar the continent. ♪ it's great to see this. great

to see the energy, the kids. they have fun, they compete. they feel good about it. jason: this is kind of basketball at its essence, right? masai: it's it is the start. i know these people have incredible journeys ahead of them. you know that. i think of this space and this ex they will always remember this. jason: to celebrate its 20th anniversary, giants of africa convened a massive festival in kigali, rwanda, a week tha comprised lots of basketball, a unveiling and a sold-out concert featuring some of africa's biggest musical acts. [music] >> please welcome, from the toronto raptors, precious achiu precious: this is a real full circle moment. just being able to be up here

speaking and a couple of years ago, i was a camper. this is am jason: for the young players, i was a combination of seeing hig quality hoops played in top-noth facilities and seeing actual pros whose own careers started that puts their potential futures in a new light. for masai, it is a way to attract new investment into afr masai: they are all in action h you should be playing. i don't know if you can beat nigeria. all the best. but good luck. he is the founder of shopify. jason: oh, really? masai: yes, he's built out of the 30 courts or 2 maybe, he's built about 12 of them for us. a lot of people want to do stuff here, but not many people see i so, you know, like, you really have to explain to them what yo if you don't come and see it, n matter how much you read, you don't feel it like being here. now you can talk about it in a different way. jason: rwanda was chosen to host the 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 for the public and private sectors there to sh basketball as a critical and effective tool for economic dev♪

jason: rwanda has not only been one of africa's fastest growing economies, but the ifm projects in 2024, it will have the seventh highest gdp growth in the world. to better understand how this all connects to basketball, i met up with my co jennifer zabasajja, who covers the continent for bloomberg, documenting the biggest stories in business and finance. jennifer: is this your first african market experience? jays: this is my first african market experience. >> are you r >> i think so. >> you can basically find anything. i like >> i like oranges. >> thank you.

>> thank you. jason: what's your sense of why giants of africa ended up in rwanda for the fest jennifer: i think there is a fe 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. we have seen that with president kagame really en jason: president paul kagame ha dominated rwandan politics since his rebel army liberated the country following the 1994 . over that time the economy has grown more than five times over, but critics say that has come at a cost. he outlawed political o the 2022 u.s. state department report cited credible reports against the government of killings, kidnappings, and viol. despite that, kagame in recent years has pushed forward policies that have opened rwanda to the rest of the world. focusing mostly on growing tourism and foreign investment. jennifer: it is a country of 13

million people. so, what has been interesting about rwanda is, it has been a test case in some ways of the role that the private sector can come in and bring investment into a country, as small as it is, and drive development. we are seeing that. we are driving around and seeing it. jason: sports has been a major part of that plan. the country's visit campaign has sponsorship deal with both arsenal and paris-saint jermaine. each worth $10 million annually and paris saint-germain set up football academy. offering coaching and access to modern facilities to the youths of rwa >> the aim of this is to identify potential talent and make them integrate with other jennifer: 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 expo exports of talent, thinking about athletes, exports of raw

materials, considering how rich this continent is, and make thi be the place where players and people want to stay and help it jason: creating true businesses that can operate within afric is what masai is most interested in. bk arena, a facility opened 2019, was the main venue for th giants of africa festival. it may be one of the best examples masai: this arena hosts all kinds of events, the basketball africa league, local leagues, c there are so many things going . we have to get better with this and government, people have to that these are moneymakers. these are job creators. this is the ecosystem of sports and how we can grow. this thing should be working 365 days a year.

and that's the economic driver. that is creating jobs. that is bringing people together. that is bringing peace. there are so many things that s brings and we don't even understand it. [buzzer] jason: during his time in rwanda, masai joined president kagame to break ground on his new venture -- zaria court. masai: we have to stop seein sports as recreation on the con we have to see it as competitio and we have to see it as a busi jason: the court is set to be placed here, within sight of bk arena and the newly renovated national stadium. the court will feature a boutique hotel, restaurants and retail spaces aimed at creating an economic ecosystem around the sports com masai: it is a place for them t go drink beer, a place to eat. this is what people want. there is a hotel for them to stay close by. for me, when you think about the whole thing, you are

trying to create business and l and atmosphere that is peaceful and conducive for people to gro part of that ecosystem on the other side in the west when i look at scotiabank arena, i look at l.a. live, and i look at the hotels, the restaurants, the shops, sports bars, all of those things around those places create an atmosphere where people can grow, and grow in a business sense. jason: masai hopes that it is only the first court on the continent. masai: we talked about it in senegal, we talked about it in kenya, we talked about it in the republic of benin, nigeria. we are usually a copycat continent. when one person does it, the next person wants to do it. i'm hoping that other countries copy this ecosystem that we are the arena, the stadium, and what's the surrounding. jason:

you have a lot of influence across the nba and across global basketball, but you are not a bigwig in the nba. what gave you the confidence that you could do this, that you could affect this change? masai: maybe the best thing i ever discovered, that helped me in my career, was the confidenc in the continent and the confidence in the talent in the continent and if we grew the game, the spotlight would start to come to this continent. but we have to grow it. ♪

masai: that's a basketball court we built. beautiful. that is pretty cool. jason: what do you think when you pass that? masai: when i went past it the first time, i was like, wow. the meaning is -- you don't even understand it. something like this, it is just a saturday and lots of kids pla and maybe somewhere, somehow, t court inspired that person a little bit. we will find a way to get to 100. jason: masai is up to 29 of his stated goal of 100 courts. growing the basketb infrastructure as well as the s business infrastructure will

continue to face economic and political challenges. but you couldn't find a more global thinker than masai, something he is reminded of at every toronto it is the only international home court for the nba. masai: my mom is from kenya. my dad is from nigeria. i was born in england, and live 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 have canadian and american citizenship. i don't know if everybody wants to see how many passports we have. [la] jason: spread them out on the table. masai: yeah, spread them out on the table. the only team that i outside of america, i think we have to embrace that. that is what we the north was. that is what the raptors everywhere around the globe is. for me,

there is that unique representa a lot of people need a voice an a lot of people need representa 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 t world leaders and these people, to have incredible friends, whether it is in communities or anywhere, and somehow, i have t bring people together. that is why the festival is bringing people together. jason: 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 the world leaders, because it speak to the sort of sociopolitical, socio-cultural importance of this league. pres. obama: it is a remarkable space. it is a community space, a library, a computer lab, a vocational center, a football pitch, and i'm very happy to se there is also a basketball cour

so, thank you masai, thank you giants of africa. [applause] jason: that is kind of cool. masai: that's awesome. that's awesome. he is so incredible, incredible friend t but actually being on the court with president barack obama in kenya, he is half kenyan and i am 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 f giants of africa. to have a part of this. jason: and he loves basketball. he is a certified baller. masai: he is a certified baller. he is a certified gm, he is a certified there are a couple people i kno 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 they could 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. jason: at the height of his team's success on the cour masai himself would become part of a larger conversation about >> please, please. jason: 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. how do you think about that now and how you have used it to tr and have some benefit for other masai: 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 maybe they are not wearing a suit that day. they are judged wrongly and persecuted wrongly. that bothers me because i knew had not done anything wrong. for one year, i didn't have a good . yeah, for one year, i started to doubt myself. not myself as a person. myself with that incident. i started to think, did i hit him and i knew if i have not done something wrong, i would have that fight. i would have the ability to get lawyers and figh

how many people have that abili not many. [cheers] jason: the giants of aa festival ended with one banger of a concert. headlined by an at davido, who, no surprise, is a friend of masai. having watched you, you are the mastermind of everything that is going on and it is easy to see your impact when you are there. how do you, from here, ensure that that is keeping goin between your day-to-day here and giants of africa? masai: there's only one word. winning. it is the pascal siakams, the og anunobys, the joel embiids. when you see this actually go from basketball camp to nba, all nba

player, all-star nba player, 70-point nba player. a championship nba player, that's real. but i have to win that gives me the opportunity t grow the game globally in afric and nigeria. and all over the w jason: because winning creates is that the idea? masai: 100%. you win on the court, you win off the court. and as you do that, you bring people along. ♪

david: this is now street week, i'm david westin bringing you stories of capitalism. this week the new era of populism and what it means for