Metropolitan Basketball Association
MBA logo
|
|
| Sport | Basketball |
|---|---|
| Founded | March 7, 1998 |
| Ceased | July 26, 2002 |
| No. of teams | 16 |
| Country |
 Philippines
|
| Last champion(s) |
RCPI-Negros Slashers |
The Metropolitan Basketball Association (MBA), or Metroball, was a professional basketball league in the Philippines that ran from March 7, 1998 to July 26, 2002.
The MBA was played its first game on March 7, 1998 at the Don Narciso Ramos Sports Complex in Lingayen, Pangasinan. Unlike the Philippine Basketball Association, in which teams represent companies, the MBA teams represented a particular city, province or island in the country. The league brought basketball closer to the people, and it raided the PBA for talent.
The MBA was widely viewed as broadcast giant ABS-CBN's attempt to undermine the PBA after failing to snatch its broadcast rights in 1998.
Metroball allowed foreigners to play for their teams, not requiring Philippine passports of them, nor requiring those foreigners to have Filipino blood. All the league required was that these players be born in the Philippines.
As a direct result of this practice, the MBA and its foreign-born players began attracting attention away from the PBA, forcing the PBA to escalate their own players' salaries and practically rendering the PBA draft useless through a "direct hiring" process.
This allowed PBA teams like Talk 'N Text and Tanduay to negotiate directly with MBA players or MBA prospects (like Asi Taulava and Sonny Alvarado) for their services.
However, the league folded on July 26, 2002 due to extremely high expenses on funding a regional basketball league, and most especially when broadcast partner ABS-CBN withdrew funding for the league. Several players went to the semi-professional Philippine Basketball League en route to the PBA.
The MBA had a season similarly styled to that of the National Basketball Association. The teams were grouped into two conferences: Northern (Luzon and Metro Manila) and Southern (Visayas/Mindanao). The season concluded with the MBA National Finals, where the Northern Conference champion faced the Southern Conference champion to decide the MBA Championship.
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