The Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) is a men's professional basketball league in the Philippines composed of twelve company-branded franchised teams. It was the first professional basketball league in Asia and is the second oldest continuously existing in the world after the NBA. The league's regulations are a hybrid of rules from FIBA and the NBA. The league played its first game at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City on April 9, 1975. Their main offices are located along Eulogio Rodriguez Jr. Avenue (C-5 road), Eastwood City, Libis, Quezon City. The league is currently headed by Commissioner Chito Salud.
The Philippine Basketball Association was founded when nine teams left the now-defunct Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association (MICAA), which was tightly controlled by the Basketball Association of the Philippines (BAP), the FIBA-recognized national association at the time.[4] With the BAP controlling the MICAA, the league was de jure amateur, as players were only paid allowances. This is much like what was done in other countries to circumvent the amateur requirement and to play in FIBA-sanctioned tournaments such as the Olympics. MICAA team owners are not pleased on how BAP, then lead by Gonzalo "Lito" Puyat are taking away their players to join the national team without consulting them first.[5] The teams that bolted away from the MICAA are the Carrier Weathermakers, Crispa Redmanizers, Mariwasa-Noritake Porcelainmakers, Presto Ice Cream, Royal Tru-Orangemen, Seven-Up Uncolas, Tanduay Distillery, Toyota Comets and the U-Tex Weavers. Leopoldo Prieto, the coach for the Philippines at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, was appointed as the first commissioner and Domingo Itchon of Tanduay was chosen as the league's first president. The first game of the league was held at the Araneta Coliseum on April 9, 1975, featuring Mariwasa-Noritake and Concepcion Carrier.