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Baltic Basketball League (BBL) is changing the format for the upcoming season by uniting two divisions. It means that the amount of teams competing for the title in 2012/2013 will grow to 21.

“BBL has proven to be a valuable tool for the federations and the clubs of the region for the player development,” said the President of BBL, Peep Aaviksoo. “Today we don’t have to convince clubs to participate; they have understood the benefit that comes out of strong sportive level, and economy that these international games give. But as the environment has changed over the past years and our top teams are getting more exposure in international leagues, we have to adopt the model to suit best for local basketball goals. The aim of the league is to help sportive and organizational development and we feel that giving a chance to compete for the title to all our teams will help them in this quest,” added Mr. Aaviksoo.

The BBL season will consist of three separate sessions. The opening event of the season will be the BBL Cup 2012 with four participating teams, similar to previous seasons. The BBL Championship tournament will be held with 21 participating teams from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Kazakhstan.

When the champion of the BBL Championship tournament is confirmed, the season will be completed with the Baltic Super Cup 2013. Held in a Final Four format, the winners of the BBL Championship tournament will take on the winners of the three 2012 Baltic domestic league winners.

The final list of the participants of the BBL season 2012/2013 will be announced on September 3, 2012.

BBL championship season 2012/2013 format:

Stage 1. Regular season

Three groups per 7 teams, 126 games, round - robin format (home and away)

Stage 2. TOP 16

Four groups per 4 teams, 48 games, round – robin format (home and away)

Stage 3. Play-offs phase

• Quarterfinals (home and away),

• Semifinals (home and away),

• Finals (home and away)

BC Zalgiris, BC Lietuvos Rytas and BC VEF Riga will not participate until Baltic Super Cup tournament due to clashes of the schedules of European and regional leagues.

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