Metropolitan Basketball Association
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 represents companies, the MBA teams represents 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.
Read more about Metropolitan Basketball Association: Season Format, Rules, MBA Most Valuable Players, MBA Champions, TV Partners, Rivalries, Trivia
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—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
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—Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)
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—Clarence Darrow (1857–1938)