Taiwan’s P.League+ professional basketball league is to be represented at the inaugural season of the East Asia Super League (EASL), a basketball Champions League of Asia, which is to start with eight teams in October next year.
The champions from the P.League+, the champions and runners-up from Japan’s B.League, the Korean Basketball League and the Philippine Basketball Association, and the newly formed Hong Kong-based Bay Area Chun Yu Phoenixes, are to compete in the East Asia Super League for a US$1 million purse, the EASL said in a statement yesterday.
The eight teams are to be split into two groups of four, with each team to play home-and-away contests against the others in its group from October to February 2023.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
The top two teams in each group are then to play in a single elimination semi-final round, with the EASL championship game in March 2023.
The P.League+ is hoping that the association with a regional league will give it wider exposure.
“Our fans love high-level basketball and can’t get enough of it,” P.League+ founder and chief executive officer Blackie Chen said. “For the P.League+, EASL is an opportunity to grow our league and elevate its level through elite competition, while gaining exposure on a pan-regional stage.”
The P.League+, which was established last year, is Taiwan’s first professional basketball league since the Chinese Basketball Alliance shut down more than 20 years ago.
The first regular-season game in the Taiwanese league is scheduled for Saturday, with the Formosa Taishin Dreamers to play the Taipei Fubon Braves at the Taipei Heping Basketball Arena.
The other teams in the league are the Hsinchu JKO Lioneers, the Taoyuan Pilots, the New Taipei Kings and the Kaohsiung Steelers.
The EASL plans to position itself as the hub of East Asian basketball, bringing the best of the region’s club teams together in an elite competition, supported by long-term agreements with FIBA and Asia’s top leagues, EASL CEO Matt Beyer said.
“Our mission is to be East Asia’s premier basketball league, with a vision to be one of the top three leagues globally by 2025 in terms of fan base and commercial revenue,” Beyer said.
The Hong Kong club is to represent “the greater China region” in the initial version of the tournament, Beyer was cited as saying by the South China Morning Post.
However, the EASL expects to increase its number of teams to 16 by its third season, and teams from mainland China or other areas could be included, the league said in a statement.
The FIBA Asia Board is backing the formation of the EASL, FIBA executive director Asia Hagop Khajirian said.
“This new competition has the potential to enrich the road to the FIBA Asia Champions Cup, the continent’s highest club competition, and will act as good complement to it, providing a great basketball platform for clubs in the East Asia subzone of FIBA and the Philippines,” Khajirian said.
Former NBA stars Metta World Peace, Baron Davis and Shane Battier are on board as EASL brand ambassadors.
Each club is to be allowed two foreign imports plus an extra Asian import in 12-man rosters for each game.
However, there is to be a big emphasis on tapping local talent.
Additional reporting by AP
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
RSS