P. League+: 20 Years in the Making
A little more than two decades ago, there was a professional basketball league that took the Asian basketball world by storm. The league was named Chinese Basketball Alliance (CBA). This is not the same CBA (Chinese Basketball Association) you know that has recruited well-known former NBA players such as Stephon Marbury, Tracy McGrady, Gilbert Arenas, Metta World Peace (You might know him as Ron Artest), Jeremy Lin, and many more. This was a league in Taiwan that was considered top and among the earliest professional basketball leagues in Asia, which was responsible for propelling professional basketball development in East Asian countries such as China and South Korea. However, the league collapsed in its fifth season due to financial troubles, marking an end to an exciting ride for basketball in Taiwan.
Since then, professional basketball took a 20-year hiatus in Taiwan. SBL (Super Basketball League), the CBA’s semi-professional replacement in Taiwan, enjoyed a few years of popularity when the “Golden Generation” of Taiwanese basketball reigned the local league. However, the power struggles and negative exposure of the local basketball authorities began to turn away the fans. As the PRC-based CBA became more mature, doors opened up for top players in Taiwan in the late 2010s. The “Golden Generation” gradually left for higher competition and better compensations found in other top Asian leagues. Meanwhile, local basketball fans eventually became estranged from the SBL. In recent years, SBL seems to be reaching rock bottom one season after another, oftentimes setting attendance records lower than 100 per game.
A Turning Point
While Taiwan has been struggling to find its local basketball presence back, a cross-border professional basketball league called the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) has been thriving in the past decade. Despite an unsuccessful attempt to bring professional basketball back to Taiwan through ABL by the Kaohsiung Truth, a group of basketball enthusiasts including famous show host and former athlete Blackie Chen formed the Formosa Dreamers to participate in the ABL in 2017, joining the most competitive basketball league in Southeast Asia.
This altered the trajectory of Taiwan’s professional basketball development.
After a mediocre first season in the ABL, the Formosa Dreamers turned heads in the second season by finishing first in the regular season. Along with their successful marketing campaigns and social media presence, the Dreamers brought back “Golden Generation” players like Tien Lei and Lee Hsueh-lin from China for the season, which set a crucial foundation for the team’s strong presence and identity both locally and internationally. In the span of a year, the Dreamers even accumulated a sizable fan base in Southeast Asia who would fly into Taiwan just for their games.
A Scaled-Up Experiment
The Dreamers’ success drew the attention of the Fubon Braves, who just finished its season as the 2019 SBL Champions. Led by Chris Tsai, a basketball fanatic who is the third-generation heir to a top 3 financial conglomerate in Taiwan, the Braves is destined to revolutionize Taiwan’s basketball with its immense resource and support. In 2019, the Braves officially reached an agreement with the Taipei City Government to become the city’s first official pro basketball team in history, joining the Dreamers in the ABL.
The addition of Taipei Fubon Braves in the ABL was particularly important for testing the largest market in this scaled-up experiment of professional sports entertainment in Taiwan. If the result turned out to be satisfactory, this experiment could pave the way for further professional basketball development in Taiwan. Vice versa, if local fans didn’t respond well, there might not be another chance to take a look at professional basketball for another decade. In hindsight, Taiwan’s national team performance in the future would be in doubt.
In a season that was cut short due to COVID-19 setbacks, both the Braves and Dreamers proved to be top contenders in the ABL. Most importantly, these two teams became the two most popular basketball teams in Taiwan by attendance records. Regardless of the size of the stadiums they played in, both teams almost turned in full attendances on a game-to-game basis.
The growing figures in attendance and overall sales served as strong testaments to the feasibility of a professional basketball league in Taiwan. The Braves and Dreamer successfully demonstrated how professional basketball can strive in Taiwan in this brief “market experiment” in the ABL.
The Birth
In the summer of 2020, like many professional basketball leagues around the world that had been suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the previous season, the ABL announced that its upcoming season would again be halted indefinitely until further notice. Taiwan, as one of the least affected regions in the world, was one of the few places where sports entertainment was still active. This opened the doors for Braves and Dreamers to potentially return to a local league. Blackie Chen held talks with Chris Tsai from Fubon, the President of Pauian Archiland, John Hsuan from UMC, and the owners of Formosa Dreamers about the possibility of forming a local professional basketball league in Taiwan. Blackie also leveraged his personal connections with the so-called “Taiwan Mafia” and convinced successful Taiwanese entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley to invest in this new league, including Phil Chen from Race Capital, Kai Huang from Guitar Hero, Jameson Hsu from Mochi Media, Chris Wang from Disney Playdom, and Kevin Lin from Twitch.
By September of 2020, P. League+ was officially established, ending a 20-year drought to professional basketball in Taiwan. P. League+ aspires to be built on the foundation of 5 principles: people, players, passion, professionalism, and plus.
In the league’s inaugural season, it brought together four teams from different cities: Taipei Fubon Braves, Taoyuan Pilots, Hsinchu Lioneers, and Changhua Formosa Dreamers. The league assembled a strong cast of Taiwanese players, including Chih-Chieh Lin, Jet Chang, and Amigo Yang, and the majority of players from the Golden Generation of Taiwan Basketball. This group of local players was also joined by notable former NBA players including Hasheem Thabeet, Davon Reed, Julian Wright, and Branden Dawson. Other notable players include Jeremy Lin’s younger brother Joseph Lin.
As a result of its strong on-and-off court efforts, the league enjoyed great success in its first season. Despite some COVID-19 turbulence during the season, P. League+ brought in more than 220k in-person attendees in the first 40 games played, with a whopping 82.4% league average attendance rate. Combined with revenues from broadcasting, merchandise, and licensing deals; two teams had already been profitable according to the league. Moreover, P. League+ provided more than 200 job opportunities in its first season.
Dream Big, Change the Game
Being a sports fanatic myself, seeing a revolutionary year for Taiwan basketball in 2020 gives me an intense adrenaline rush like many other basketball fans here. After all, we’ve waited more than 20 years for this to happen, just like the league’s slogan.
What’s more significant about the impact of the P. League+ is that it didn’t disrupt an existing market, but created a brand new sports entertainment market for modern day basketball in Taiwan. Now, it’s the league’s responsibility to continue educating the fans what they are really trying to create, while inducing them to shape this market by listening to their needs. This is innovation at its best.
Going forward, I hope that P. League+ can continue to “dream big and change the game”. The opportunities for innovation that comes from this league are not only limited to the sports industry, but could also happen in technology, media and entertainment, and manufacturing industries. All of these will be crucial for Taiwan’s next industry transformation in the new age.
In the next episode of the series, let’s talk about some of the key success factors for the P. League+. How did P. League+ bring back the fans? From its fundamental structure to opportunities ahead, this new basketball league has much more for avid basketball fans to desire. Can we strengthen its development further?
