The Philippine Basketball Association has hooked up with the East Asia Super League, the new pan-regional tournament that features eight of Asia’s best teams from the region’s top leagues to compete for the $1 million prize money.
Bolstered by its 10-year agreement with FIBA, basketball’s global governing body, the EASL has also formalized a multi-year partnerships with the Japan B.LEAGUE, Korean Basketball League and Chinese Taipei P. LEAGUE+ along with a seeded and top Greater China team in Hong Kong SAR.
The set-up will have the eight teams split into two groups of four play a round-robin format.
Each team plays a home-and-away game in their group, six games each, for a total of 24 games during the group stage set from October 2022 to February 2023, with two EASL Group Stage games taking place every Wednesday night.
The top two teams in the standings from each group advance to the Final Four and play in sudden death Semifinals and Championship matches in March 2023.
EASL has received buy ins from some of basketball’s most established statesmen, securing investment, as well as brand ambassador and strategic advisory support from NBA stars Baron Davis, Metta World Peace and Shane Battier, as well as top sports industry businesspeople, including NBA agent Bill Duffy, and blue-chip institutional sports-focused funds, including The Raine Group, along with Asia’s top family offices and high net worth individuals.
Following four successful large-scale invitational tournaments from 2017-2019, including the The Terrific 12 two years ago with 117 million viewers on 36 platforms, EASL is proud to take the next step to elevate the sport of basketball in Asia and be Asia’s premier pan-regional league, as well as the most prolific and dynamic Asian basketball storytellers in the digital world for our majority Gen Z and young Millennial fanbase.