The Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) is a men's professional basketball league in the Philippines made up of twelve company-branded franchised teams.
Founded in 1975, it is the first professional basketball league in Asia and is the second oldest continuous professional basketball league in existence in the world after the NBA, established before the "open era" of basketball in 1990 where FIBA it allowed longstanding national leagues, which had mostly predated the PBA, to turn professional. The league regulations are a hybrid of the NBA and FIBA rules.
The league played its first game at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City on April 9, 1975. Its main offices are located along Eulogio Rodriguez Jr. Avenue (Road C-5), Eastwood City, Bagumbayan, Quezon City.
The Basketball Association of the Philippines was founded when nine teams left the now-defunct Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association (MICAA), which was strictly controlled by the Basketball Association of the Philippines (BAP), the national association recognized by FIBA. at that moment. With the BAP controlling MICAA, the league was de jure amateur, as players were only paid allowances.
This is much like what was done in other countries to bypass the amateur requirement and play in FIBA-sanctioned tournaments such as the Olympics. The MICAA team owners were unhappy with the way BAP (then led by Gonzalo "Lito" Puyat) took their players to join the national team without consulting them first.
On January 23, 1975, Mariwasa-Noritake Porcelainmakers team owner Emerson Coseteng, along with Carrier Weathermakers, Toyota Comets, Seven-Up Uncolas, and Presto Ice Cream announced the formation of the PBA. The Crispa Redmanizers, Royal Tru-Orange, Tanduay Distillery and the U/Tex Weavers later joined the next professional league.
Leopoldo Prieto, coach of the Philippines at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, was appointed as the first commissioner and Coseteng was elected as the first chairman of the league's Board of Governors. The first league match was held at the Araneta Coliseum on April 9, 1975, with Mariwasa-Noritake and Concepción Carrier.