Jakarta, Monday, September 26, 2011 — A Vietnamese team owned by the Saigon Sports Academy will join the third season of the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) slated to tip off on January 14th, 2012.

That brings the number of new teams to three in the eight-team league. There were only six teams in each of the first two seasons. The league had recently announced the participation of San Miguel Beermen, as well as a yet unnamed Bangkok-based team. The Brunei Barracudas pulled out last week from the league after two seasons.

“It’s a fantastic feeling to see our efforts in creating an ASEAN league that would help grow the development of the game now taking flight with more competitive teams signing up to battle for the honor of being the best in South East Asia,” said Mr Tony Fernandes, Group CEO of AirAsia and the founder of the ASEAN Basketball League.

Mr. Kuhan Foo, the CEO of the ABL stated, “The inclusion of an established team like San Miguel from the Philippines and the new teams from Vietnam and Thailand show that the ABL is now turning into a regional gladiator ring for basketball with both giants of the game and new boys with large ambitions now signing up to fight for the right to be the best in ASEAN.”

Defending champions Thailand Slammers, season one champions Philippine Patriots, KL Dragons. Singapore Slingers and the Indonesia Warriors — formerly Satria Muda Britama — will also return in the third season.

Mr Erick Thohir, president of the Southeast Asia Basketball Association (SEABA), stated: “I hope ABL will become more competitive in the future and will be able to improve the national team’s performance in order to compete in FIBA Asia, facing the Middle East and East Asia countries such as Qatar, Syria, Taiwan, etc.

“Basketball in South East Asia has become quite popular, and it can be seen from the SEA Games basketball event that will have eight nations participating …. This has never happened before.”

Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand are expected to take part in the basketball tournament at the upcoming SEA Games in Indonesia.

The format of the last two seasons will be maintained, with triple home and away games for the league stage, with a best-of-three series for the playoffs, including the finals. The champions of the third season will again go on to represent the region in the 2012 FIBA Asia Champions Cup.

“It has been an exciting year and last season we did not even know who will get into the play-off up till the last game of regular season!” said Mr Mark Chang, team owner of the Singapore Slingers. “Every year we see more fans in Singapore following the games and it will be exciting to see how the next season will run with the introduction of all the new teams.”

One major change for season three is that the competition will begin in January 2012, to accommodate the ABL players who will also represent their countries at the 26th SEA Games.

The third season run for six months, two months longer than the league’s first two seasons, due to the expanded league.