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| (Image Source: East Asia Super League) |
The East Asia Super League (EASL) is proud to announce EASL Champions Week which will take place in Japan on March 1-5, 2023. The league’s eight teams will battle for the inaugural Champions Week title and the first prize of US$250,000 with US$100,000 going to the runner-up and US$50,000 to the third-place team. A total of 10 games will be played in Japan from March 1-5, 2023. The 2021-2022 B.League champions Utsunomiya Brex will host the first six games of the Group Stage. 2021-2022 B. League first runners-up Ryukyu Golden Kings, on the other hand, will eventually host four games total; two Group Stage games as well as the Championship and third place game on March 5 in Okinawa in their new stadium which is also a 2023 FIBA World Cup venue.
“EASL is honored to be the hub of East Asian basketball, bringing the best of 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 Champions Week in Japan will be unlike anything ever seen before and provide fans with electrifying game actions and a platform for the top leagues and professional teams in the region to gain global exposure,” said EASL CEO Matt Beyer. Each day of EASL Champions week will feature two marquee match-ups featuring the Bay Area Dragons, 2022 PBA Philippine Cup champions San Miguel Beermen and first runners-up TNT Tropang Giga, Utsunomiya Brex, Ryukyu Golden Kings, 2021-2022 Korean Basketball League champions Seoul SK Knights and first runners-up Anyang KGC and 2021-2022 P.League+ (Taiwan) champions Taiwan Fubon Braves. “KBL welcomes the EASL Champions Week in Japan. We wish the Champions Week will be a foundation for a prosperous and stable long term operation of EASL. KBL expects the participating KBL teams in Champions Week to showcase the best of Korean basketball,” said KBL Commissioner Kim Hee Ok.
Each team will play two Group Stage games, for a total of eight games from March 1-4. The first three Group Stage game days will be held in Utsunomiya Nikkan Arena. The final day of Group Stage games will be held in Okinawa Arena, and the top two teams from each group advance to play in a Championship and third place game, also in Okinawa. “We can’t wait to see our top teams head to Japan to compete in East Asia Super League competition. We’re also well aware of the rising popularity of Filipino players and basketball in Japan, and we’re ready to make a strong run for the Championship,” said PBA Commissioner Willie Marcial. If two or more teams finish group play with the same win-loss record, a tiebreaker will be implemented. The order of tiebreaker implementation will be as follows: the higher game points difference of all games in the group, followed by the higher number of game points scored in all games in the group.
EASL continues its commitment to providing fans with dynamic behind-the-scenes and in-depth entertainment as Korean director John H. Lee, top Korean reality production company IGNITE! together with Steve Nash’s CTRL Media led by Ezra Holland, former CAA China head Jonah Greenberg’s Salty Pictures and Marc Iserlis’s Third Culture Collective will be producing a five-episode, 20-minute per episode, series on EASL Champions Week for audiences globally. EASL will launch its home-and-away format in Fall 2023 for Season 2 of EASL competition, with representative teams qualifying through their current domestic seasons. In Season 3 beginning in Fall 2024, EASL will expand the format to 16 teams and potentially add in new leagues and geographies into the EASL. "Our fans love great basketball and can’t get enough of it. For the P. LEAGUE+, this Champions Week is an opportunity for our growing league to elevate its level through elite competition while gaining exposure on a pan-regional stage,” said P. LEAGUE+’s CEO Charles Chen.
