A delegation from the Ivorian Basketball National Team, has paid a courtesy call at the StarTimes headquarters in Beijing, China.

StarTimes, holds the exclusive broadcasting rights for the 2019 International Basketball Federation (FIBA) World Cup to be held in China from August 31 to September 15, 2019.

The Ivorian delegation namely, Coach Paolo Povia and Captain Guy Landry Edi were showed StarTimes’ studio and facilities.

In an interview during their visit, Captain Edi talked about StarTimes’ development in Africa.

“To give the Ivorian people, even the poorest, the opportunity to watch the World Cup, it will give us strength as we know that all across the country people will be watching us,” he said.

Coach Povia also talked about StarTimes’ plans for FIBA World Cup, he said “I am very surprised. It is an incredible organisation with a lot of enthusiasm. I see there are a lot of nice projects about Cote d’Ivoire, about basketball and about this World Cup. I think the best way to let people know about our sport is to show it on TV.”

Philippe Zou, StarTimes Francophone Africa General Manager, said he was “much honored that delegates from Cote d’Ivoire's national team visited our studio as we were putting a lot of efforts into promoting basketball in Africa.

“Several African countries have a long tradition of basketball and Africa’s potential is huge. There are five African countries competing this year. We hope the FIBA World Cup 2019 will be the opportunity for Africa to shine and for the African people to fall in love with basketball.”

StarTimes Sport Director Shi Maochu said “We expect a great show as the tournament is very open with a ‘weak’ Team USA and a strong Serbia. We prepared special TV shows to review the tournament and teams, and for each match day we will have analysis and highlights to make sure fans can fully enjoy the World Cup. All shows and matches will also be available on our streaming application StarTimes ON.”

Angola, Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia will be the five teams representing Africa after the tournament was expanded from 24 to 32 teams