New Asian College Basketball League Hopes To Produce The NBA’s Next Asian Superstar

by James Van WicklerJune 3, 2025, 2:06 amNews >

The new Asian University Basketball League is the first-of-its-kind college basketball organization that will launch this summer in Asia.

The CEO of AUBL, Jay Li, has two goals for the new basketball league: to bring together colleges across Japan, China and Korea and add another layer of development that could produce the NBA’s next Asian superstar.

“We are not just an Asian basketball league,” Li told ESPN. “We could be the centerpiece of youth talent development for the entire world when it comes to developing Asia’s next Yao Ming, Asia’s next Jermey Lin.”

This league has the backing of multiple investors, including Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty owner Joe Tsai. The AUBL will play its first game in August, Li told ESPN after announcing that the AUBL raised the initial funding to move forward with the basketball league.

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The league will host a tournament featuring a group stage and a knockout round for 12 elite Asian college basketball programs, culminating in a final four and a championship. The AUBL will play a full schedule next year that will include road and home games.

Li stated that college basketball has the potential to grow rapidly in Asia, where there are more than one billion fans. Li said that he was receiving calls from places around the world, including Australia, to participate in the league.

“In Europe, the pipeline of young talent is very strong, but the commercial value of basketball is lagging behind there, right?” Li told ESPN. “That’s why the NBA they’re trying to start a new league there, but in Asia, actually, the basketball talent is now growing really fast. We want to see more [talent] coming from Asia.”

Li said that the AUBL will increase the number of Asian players in the NBA because it will centralize the college basketball landscape in Asia and make the process for scouting NBA talent more efficient.