Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, September 26 (Reporter Li Bowen, Cao Yibo) The press conference of the 2024-2025 Chinese Men's Basketball Professional League (CBA) was held in Beijing on the 26th, and the new season will start on October 12, and the newly created competition, the CBA Club Cup, will also make its debut.
Founded in 1995, the CBA league is about to usher in its 30th season, and Yao Ming, chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association, said: "The new season is about to begin, and we look forward to dedicating more exciting events to fans across the country in this season, and we hope that all of us can find our own value." ”
The new CBA season will kick off on October 12, the regular season will be adjusted to 46 rounds, the playoffs will still adopt a 3-5-5-7 format, and the foreign player policy will be implemented 4 (maximum) 4 quarters and 7 players (up to 2 in each quarter in the first three quarters and 1 in the fourth quarter). The 2025 CBA All-Star Weekend is scheduled to be held in Changchun, Jilin Province, from February 28 to March 2, 2025.
In order to actively respond to the national strategy of "revitalizing the three balls", continue to promote the reform of the tournament system, provide more training opportunities for local players, and enrich the brand system of the CBA league, CBA plans to launch a new event - "CBA Club Cup" from 2024.
Jiang Jian, general manager of CBA, introduced: "The CBA Club Cup is a self-renewal of CBA. The CBA club celebrates the 30th season of the league by founding the Cup, and pays tribute to Chinese basketball. ”
It is understood that the participating teams of the CBA Club Cup are the participating teams of the CBA League in the current season. The CBA Club Cup has a different home-and-away format from the CBA League, and will use a tournament format to produce the champion.
The group stage of the inaugural CBA Club Cup will take place during the first league suspension in November 2024 and will feature four divisions with five teams each. Each group is played in a single round-robin format, with the top two teams from each group advancing to the final stage. The finals will take place during the second league pause in February 2025, with the eight teams advancing from the first phase playing a single-elimination tournament in the same region to determine the winner of the inaugural CBA Club Cup.