Six CBA clubs establish eSports Basketball Association

On April 3, six CBA clubs, the Liaoning Flying Leopards, Zhejiang Guangsha Lions, Shenzhen New Century Leopards, Beijing Fly Dragons, Jiangsu Kentier Dragons and the Sichuan Blue Whales, reached an agreement with Zhongjing Huyu and Tencent to create the eSports Basketball Association (EBA) in China.

In June 2017, several Chinese Super League clubs also embraced the eSports business by setting up Chinese E-sports Football League (CEFL). Different from CEFL’s seeing FIFA Online 3 as their main events, the EBA has decided to start with one of China’s most popular mobile game, King of Glory.

Under the new agreement, the 6 basketball clubs have plans to establish their own King of Glory teams combining their longstanding basketball team culture. The proposed eSports teams will play home and away games under the EBA rules, with the aim of creating a brand new 100-billion-yuan eSports event model.

The inaugural season of the EBA will kick off during the 2018 CBA off-season, as the pre-season games are expected to start at the end of April in Shenzhen, Shenyang and Hangzhou. Later in August, EBA games will expand to the cities where the 6 CBA clubs located.

As Li Jian, Zhongjing Huyu President and the EBA CEO said, the EBA is a “city-based multi-level tournament aiming to serve cities in turn”. 

Source: Sohu

Proofread by William Logsdon