BEIJING: For the first time, East Asia will have its very own club-to-club regional basketball competition.
The East Asia Super League (EASL), scheduled for October 2021, will feature club teams from China, the Philippines, Japan and South Korea, with teams playing each other in a home-and-away format to ultimately decide a winner at a Final Four event that will rotate between the participating nations, reports Xinhua news agency.
According to EASL CEO Matt Beyer, a regional tournament of this nature is long overdue, with an unprecedented number of basketball thirsty fans craving a higher level of club competition.
"East Asia, between the geographies that we cover, has over two billion people and people get so excited about the national team competitions, but there really hasn't been that club-to-club model, and this type of rivalry within the region - both from an entertainment perspective, and to have a collective platform to raise up East Asian talent on a global level - is what we aspire to," said Beyer of the thinking that lead to the conception of the league. IANS