{"id":706637,"date":"2026-04-09T14:09:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T14:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/706637\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T14:09:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T14:09:20","slug":"joe-tsais-asian-basketball-league-series-a-taps-yao-lasry-blitzer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/706637\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Tsai’s Asian Basketball League Series A Taps Yao, Lasry, Blitzer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Asian University Basketball<\/a> League helmed by Alibaba co-chairman and Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai<\/a> has completed a Series A funding round featuring investments from Yao Ming, David Blitzer<\/a> and Marc Lasry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tA valuation of the league, featuring colleges across greater Asia, isn\u2019t known, but a person familiar with the fundraise characterized it as being at least eight figures. The Tsai family office, Blue Pool Capital, led the round, on top of the seed funding it provided AUBL<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

\n\tLasry\u2019s Avenue Capital and Blitzer\u2019s Bolt Ventures joined the Series A in addition to Yao, the retired NBA All-Star and former president of the Chinese Basketball Association. Other investors joining the round include Hong Kong\u2019s Nan Fung Group and the venture capital firm HSG, formerly known as Sequoia China.<\/p>\n

\n\tAUBL will host its 2026 tournament in August in Hangzhou, China, featuring 12 university teams from around Asia, including first-time participation from the Philippines and Australia. The participating universities have yet to be announced. The league will also debut a 16-school, home-and-away season beginning in November and running through April 2027.<\/p>\n

\n\tOverall, the league seeks to build upon established and growing interest in elite basketball, particularly in greater China, where the NBA has already established a decades-long presence. The league hopes to create an\u00a0Asian\u00a0college basketball<\/a> tradition\u00a0of its own,\u00a0similar to March Madness in the U.S.,\u00a0according to AUBL founder and CEO Jay Li.<\/p>\n

\n\tLi told\u00a0Sportico\u00a0that\u00a0\u201cthe opportunity is to build what Asia does not yet have: a connected, pan-regional platform that raises the level of competition through regular cross-border play, creates a shared calendar and championship moment, and strengthens school identity and fan engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLast month, Lasry\u2019s Avenue Sports Fund agreed to invest $40 million<\/a> in the NWSL\u2019s North Carolina Courage, while Bolt Ventures was part of a consortium that purchased<\/a> the Royal Challengers Bengaluru of cricket\u2019s Indian Premier League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Asian University Basketball League helmed by Alibaba co-chairman and Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai has completed a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,217,26955,9470,18152,6,671],"class_list":{"0":"post-706637","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn-nets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklynnets","12":"tag-college-basketball","13":"tag-david-blitzer","14":"tag-joe-tsai","15":"tag-marc-lasry","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-nets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116375149947045742","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}