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The Metropolitan Basketball Association (MBA), or Metroball, was a professional basketball league in the Philippines founded in 1998. Unlike the Philippine Basketball Association, in which teams represent companies, the MBA teams represent 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 is 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 is 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 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. ==Season format== The MBA has a season similarly styled to that of the National Basketball Association. The teams are grouped into two conferences: Northern (Luzon and Metro Manila) and Southern (Visayas/Mindanao). The season concludes with the MBA National Finals, where the Northern Conference champion faces the Southern Conference champion to decide the MBA Championship. After the league adapted a semi-commercial format (teams are sponsored by companies), several methods were used to in determining its champion. In their final season, they have adapted a three-conference format, similar with the PBA. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Metropolitan Basketball Association」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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