BASKETBALL/TPBL 2024-25 season to tip off Oct. 19

Taipei, Sept. 19 (CNA) The newly established Taiwan Professional Basketball League (TPBL) will launch its inaugural season on Oct. 19, with seven teams vying for the championship.

The Formosa Dreamers will host the New Taipei CTBC DEA on Oct. 19 in Taichung in the first game of the league's regular season, starting at 2:30 p.m., which will be followed by the Kaohsiung Aquas' home game against the New Taipei Kings at 5 p.m., the TPBL said at a press conference in Taipei on Thursday.

The Taishin Taipei Mars and Hsinchu Toplus Lioneers will make their TPBL debuts the next day, while the Taoyuan TaiwanBeer Leopards will not play until Oct. 27, when they will face off against the Aquas in another home game for the latter.

A total of 126 regular-season games will be played from mid-October to May 18, with all seven teams each playing 18 home and away games.

The fifth-placed team will enter a best-of-three playoffs play-in series with the fourth-place team, which will be granted a one-win advantage in the series.

The remaining playoff series will be a best-of-seven, the league said, adding that the postseason is set to begin May 30.

Chuang Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄), who heads the league, said the establishment of the TPBL marked a significant step in the development of basketball in Taiwan, and he urged all franchises in the country to unite their efforts.

"The U.S. and Japan are so big, but they each have only one [basketball] league, so I hope that we can concentrate our resources to improve the overall environment," he said.

His comment followed some controversy over a planned merger of the six P.LEAGUE+ (PLG) teams and the five T1 LEAGUE (T1) teams, which was seen as the precursor of the TPBL.

Following the controversy between the two leagues, the Lioneers, Dreamers, and Kings began working with most of the T1 teams to form the TPBL, while the Tainan TSG GhostHawks moved to the PLG, which now has only four teams.

According to the TPBL, a team can register up to 14 local players, two foreign players with Taiwanese parents, and four international players. In addition, they can sign no more than one international student who studied at a Taiwan college or an international player in the East Asia Super League.

Meanwhile, the TPBL announced its long-awaited rules and regulations about naturalized players, saying it will take at least five years for such players to be recognized as local.

Citing the example of Brandon Gilbeck of the Dreamers, the TPBL said he was naturalized after a two-year stay in Taiwan but will have to play for the same team for the next three years and represent the Taiwan national team during that time to be deemed a local player.

The TPBL is the fist league in Taiwan to have full-time referees, which it said is expected to elevate the standard of officiating.