MANILA — The Japanese B.League is looking to help promote sustainability and boost tourism across all cities and provinces by implementing changes in the 2026-2027 season.
The B.League will be introducing structural reforms in the upcoming season, including changing the top tier division to the B.League Premier, with the other divisions namely B.League One and B.League Next.
B.League executive officer Nao Okamoto said teams will be assessed on which division to enter through its financial track record, composed of three criteria.
A total of 55 clubs will be competing across three divisions in B.League.
"Every club needs to, you know, improve, right? Not just the league in the city area, but the, you know, city in the countryside, not in the city area. Everybody needs to improve because we have, you know, the very clear goal that we want to become the local revitalization league," Okamoto told ABS-CBN News in an interview at the Makati Shangri-la on Thursday.
"So to make it successful, the financial stability is very important. So, that's why, like I said in the last presentation, those three criteria to achieve is super important for us, very important for us. That's why we set the goal called B. Innovation to set the criteria to let them achieve those goals," he explained.
The B.League executive cited the Nagasaki Velca, whose recent championship sparked pride and helped generate tourism for the port city located in Kyushu Island.
"When they [Nagasaki Velca] won the championship, you know the people who live in this city, you know, come out and celebrate. So, yeah, it's quite you know, the emotional moment," Okamato said.
"Many people from Nagasaki went out and work in Osaka or Tokyo from Nagasaki. Everybody's, you know, not everybody, but many of them from Nagasaki is celebrating their win, right? Sometimes they come back to the home to watch a game," he added
Okamoto said Nagasaki Velca also generated buzz outside of Japan, after it signed one of South Korea's sharpshooters Hyun-jung Lee.
"More remarkable thing is not only in Japan, there are many tourists from Korea last year because of Hyun-jung Lee. As an Asian import. They hired the best Korean player last year," Okamoto shared.
"Since Nagasaki, Korea is very close. So there are a couple of hundred tourists all the way from Korea to Japan to watch the game. So [it] revitalized the local community, not only by the power of the Japanese fans, but non-Japanese fans like Korea, support that," he explained.
With the B.League bringing some of its games to Manila in September, Okamoto hopes to create the same interest among Filipino fans to fly to Japan to watch games given the number of Pinoy players suiting up as Asian imports.
"Actually we are very happy that I know we all know that Philippines is a very fanatic for basketball. They have a [huge] love to basketball. We are very proud, honored to see that many of Philippine players come to the B.League and play," he said.
When asked about reception on the upcoming changes, the B.League executive said that nothing is set in stone and it will depend on what happens in the actual season.
"Let's see what happens since it's a new structure. We introduced salary cap, we introduced the new on-court regulation. So that could be a different setup with last year. So we have so many discussions, even in the league, but outside the league, the fans are monitoring," Okamoto said.
"We haven't even started yet, right? So let's see what happens. So then we, you know, correct and we amend, you know, what we do. So 2026, 27 is about to start, but 2027, 2028, even 2029, we might change something. But, you know, based on our result, we make a decision," he shared.
The 2026–27 B.League season opens with the Ryukyu Golden Kings against Alvark Tokyo on September 22.