EMBRACING the growing concept of global basketball, the PBA formally joined the East Asia Super League (EASL) where its teams will compete against squads representing the top leagues around Asia in a tournament offering a prize money of US$1 million.
The announcement was made on Wednesday when the EASL unveiled a pan-regional tournament with a home-and-away format set for an October 2022 opener.
The oldest professional league in Asia will be sending teams to compete against counterparts from the Japan B.LEAGUE, Korean Basketball League (KBL), and Chinese Taipei P. LEAGUE+ along with a seeded Greater China team in Hong Kong.
[Read EASL looking to rise as the world's third biggest basketball league]
A virtual press conference regarding the partnership is scheduled on Thursday to be graced by PBA officials led by Chairman Ricky Vargas and Commissioner Willie Marcial, along with EASL CEO and co-founder Matt Beyer.
The set-up will have the eight teams split into two groups of four play a round-robin format.
Each team will play 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.
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