African basketball does not lack stories. It lacks visibility. The Big Tip Off answers the question: “Who should be visible in African basketball?”
Who We Are
The BTO Story
Since our first story was published in 2018, The Big Tip Off has been at the forefront of African basketball storytelling. We are contributing to building the continental basketball ecosystem through our visibility work. We are driven by a passion for excellence and a commitment to advancing the narrative of African basketball.
Today, The Big Tip Off is an Africa-focused basketball media and visibility platform. We document, produce and amplify the stories of the people, competitions and institutions shaping basketball across the continent.
The Big Tip Off delivers basketball media coverage, including profiles of players, coaches, national teams, and clubs. This is done through feature articles, video interviews, photography, social media distribution and tournament documentation. Our analysis, opinions, newsletters and media advisory services support growth of the game. With every article and every post, we are building a database and archive of basketball in Africa.
Our work also looks beyond what is happening on the court. We document the referees, administrators, owners, investors, media practitioners and other people whose work enables basketball to function and grow. We see basketball as an ecosystem and our work reflects the breadth of that ecosystem.
The Big Tip Off fills the African basketball gap in documentation, archiving, storytelling capacity, consistent media coverage, visibility systems and basketball specialist media practitioners.
The idea of The Big Tip Off, the brainchild of founder and editor, Manyehlisa Lehohla, began in a Varsity College journalism classroom in 2004. Before the platform became a reality, it took several years of learning the ropes in the newsrooms of Independent Media's titles: Pretoria News, Cape Times and Cape Argus. The Big Tip Off started by first navigating the South African basketball scene, and with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we expanded our reach to the rest of the continent.
Creating content that included the continent proved to be a masterstroke, as it made The Big Tip Off a relevant entity by featuring an exclusive interview with Liz Mills, who would later make history as the first female coach to qualify a men's team for a major tournament (the 2021 AfroBasket). That interview would later be a source of information for FIBA when Mills spoke about her achievement.
Later, some of our exclusives would be tagged by ESPN during the Basketball Africa League, strengthening the case that The Big Tip Off is a necessity in Africa's basketball discourse.
It is at that point that we started seeing ourselves as both building the storytelling layer of African basketball and treating visibility as core infrastructure that enables the African basketball ecosystem.
From our South African base, we have covered domestic competitions, community events, and international tournaments, consistently delivering content that drives conversation and builds community. Our editorial archive now includes stories from over 32 African countries across all the five regions of the continent.
Since we began publishing, we have produced more than 350 feature stories and have covered domestic basketball on the continent, the Basketball Africa League and AfroBasket. This growing body of work gives The Big Tip Off an institutional memory of African basketball that continues to deepen with every story we publish.
We believe Africa should be documented consistently and with depth. We believe African basketball stories should be told from within the continent and with an understanding of the people, institutions and environments that shape the game. We also believe that the people behind basketball matter as much as the games themselves.
This understanding informs how we work with basketball clubs, leagues, federations, tournaments, brands and other partners. We bring our storytelling, photography, video, tournament documentation, media advisory and amplification capabilities into these relationships while maintaining the journalistic integrity, fairness, accuracy and objectivity that underpins The Big Tip Off.
The Big Tip Off has simultaneously become an intelligence and influence platform for basketball in Africa. As we grow, our ambition is to continue building the storytelling, documentation and visibility infrastructure that African basketball needs. We want more of the continent’s players, competitions and communities to be consistently seen, documented and remembered.
How We Work
The Big Tip Off is a founder-led, independent media business domiciled in South Africa. It works through a growing Pan-African network of independent media and associated practitioners who contribute their skills and expertise from different parts of the continent.
This includes contributing and commissioned writers, graphic designers, social media managers, IT and web developers, photographers and other content creators, as well as business and strategy professionals.
This model reflects the kind of basketball ecosystem the BTO wants to contribute to. As we create greater African basketball visibility, we also want to create opportunities for African practitioners. We provide spaces where emerging and established professionals can contribute to African basketball, deepen their experience in the sports industry, build their portfolios and earn from their expertise.
Our ambition is to continue growing this network across the continent. For the BTO, building African basketball visibility and contributing to the lives, livelihoods and professional pathways of the people who tell its stories are connected parts of the same work.
The Founder
Manyehlisa Lehohla
Manyehlisa Lehohla is the founder and editor of The Big Tip Off. A long-time servant in the media space, he brings more than 15 years of experience in journalism, editing and content production. He worked mostly in production for South African media house Independent Media and its newspaper titles, including the Pretoria News, Cape Times, Cape Argus and the Weekend Argus.
Armed with practical journalistic knowledge and academic training in journalism and communication, Lehohla is an expert in writing, editing, interviewing, photography, videography, and digital content production. His extensive knowledge of basketball and its networks has also seen him contribute content to FIBA Africa.
Lehohla has grown The Big Tip Off from a domestic platform into a recognised African basketball media platform. His approach to the work is grounded in journalistic integrity, accuracy, fairness and objectivity, alongside a commitment to documenting African basketball and strengthening the visibility of the people and institutions shaping the game across the continent.
