The East AsiaSuper League, abbreviated as EASL and formerly known as Asia League, is an offseason competition platform for club basketball in Asia organized by Hong Kong-based Asia League Limited. It has hosted 4 basketball tournaments in Macau since 2017. The first edition of tournament organised by Asia League Limited is called "The Super 8" which was an off-season tournament in 2017 recognized by FIBA. The second edition of the same tournament was held the following year under the name "Summer Super 8". In the same year, Asia League Ltd. introduced The Terrific 12, which unlike the pastSuper 8 tournaments features 12 teams instead of eight. A second edition was held in 2019 but the 2020 edition was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The EASL plans to launch a full-fledged home-and-away league in 2021.
History
Some years before the inception of the Asia League, Asia League CEO Matt Beyer conceptualized the idea of creating a league in East and Southeast Asia given the lack of high-level international tournaments featuring basketball clubs in the region. He also taken into account the population in the region, about 2 billion, which he views as the potential market for a regional inter-club tournament. The Asia League is envisioned to be East Asian counterpart of the NBA's Las Vegas Summer League where professional teams from Asia could compete against each other with minimal conflict with their mother league's schedules. There stated mission is to be able to organized basketball tournaments featuring club sides from top Asian leagues with the organizers naming the CBA, B.League, KBL, PBA, SBL, and ABL. While the FIBA Asia Champions Cup which features teams from across the Asia already exists, the Asia League initially plans to focus in the East and Southeast Asia but the organizers plans to transition the league into 32-team tournament.
Super 8
The first tournament by Asia League was the Super 8: Macau Basketball Invitational which was contested by eight teams in September 2017. The organizers initially dubbed the tournament itself as the "Asia League" this lead to them having a legal dispute with FIBA over the name of the league due to the world sports body perceiving the tournament's branding to be in conflict with its own FIBA AsiaChampions Cup. The dispute led to the renaming of the competition to "Super 8" and the tournament was eventually recognized by FIBA. The inaugural Super 8 was won by the Chiba Jets of the Japanese B. League. A second edition of the tournament dubbed as the Summer Super 8 was held in 2018.
The Terrific 12
Asia League expanded the Super 8, organizing a larger tournament, The Terrific 12. The expanded tournament featuring 12 teams held their first edition in 2018. By 2019, Asia League became known as the "East Asia Super League" and held the second edition of The Terrific 12. The COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of the 2020 edition.
2021 league
In October 2021, the organizers plans to hold a full-fledged league featuring clubs from the China, the Philippines, Japan and South Korea. The inaugural season will feature 8 teams, two from each of the four nations. The teams will play home-and-away games against each other with the top four team, figuring in the Final Four to be hosted in one of the four countries in a rotation basis.
