ABO League (Basketball)

The Apollian Basketball Organization First League or just ABO League is the highest basketball division in the Apollo Union. Cleveland Cavaliers are the current holders of the league and strong favourites to win the league.

The league was founded by the ABO after the last competition, the Basketball Premier Division, was abolished after doping scandals. The National Union of Apollian Basketball was also abolished and the ABO took it's place only 2 months later. The division was set up on the 6th of January 2008 and the first matches could be played around the 20th of January after the teams joined the league.

National Basketball Division (NBD) (1956-1980)
The NBD was the first incarnation of a professional basketball league in the Apollo Union. The Toronto Huskies were the favourites every season and winning 20 out of the 24 seasons.

In 1980, due to financial issues, the league was abolished. A new competition would be set up by the Canadian-Apollian Basketball Leagues or the CABL.

Canadian-Apollian Basketball League (CABL) (1982-1984)
The CABL was a short lived basketball competition consisting out of teams from Canada and the Apollo Union. Teams from Canada and the northern parts of the Apollo Union made up the northern conference and the rest of the Apollo Union would make up the southern conference. Because of long distances between teams from the northern conference to teams like the Vancouver Electrics, Victoria Snowdunkers, etc. the league was abolished.

The Division of Basketball (1984-2000)
The Division of Basketball was the highest basketball league from 1984-2000.

In 2000 it was abolished to make a new basketball league that would increase the size from 20 teams to 32.

Basketball Premier Division (BPD) (2000-2008)
The BPD was the fourth incarnation of the Apollian Basketball League, initially set-up to have 32 teams playing in an interesting play-off system. The expansion from 20 to 32 teams was a grave mistake for the BPD, most of the franchises could only outlive 1 to 2 seasons before being abolished, and a lot of teams didn't have the financial capacity to keep playing in the league. In the 2000 season 32 teams played, 2001 season 26 teams, 2002 season 21 teams and in 2004 only 18 teams. After the Jacksonville Jokers and Island Storm joined in 2005 the league size would become 20 and that would stay like that until it demise.

In 2007 the "Dunkers Doping Scandal" hit the fan, players from the Delaware Dunkers, a new franchise that joined in 2002, revealed to the press that they got forcefully put on performance enhancing drugs by the Dunkers and the NUAB (National Union of Apollian Basketball). This wroke havoc on the basketball association and the decision came to abolish the league and the NUAB.

Apollian Basketball Organization First League (ABO League) (2008-present)
This is the current league of Apollian Basketball.

The 2019 season is the first year a new play-off system is introduced since the creation of the ABO League. Teams will play eachother as much untill a team has 3 wins, that means a max of 5 matches. From 2008-2018 the teams played 2 matches against each other and they used the points scored as indicator if you can progress. The final was played in 1 match, that would now be 3 matches.

Championship
Every team plays the other teams 2 times, 46 games in total.

4 teams of every conference automatically go to play-off rounds. The winner of each division, if not already qualified via the conference, will be wildcards and play in a seperate group system each consisting of 3 times from each division which will play eachother 2 times. The 4th places of the conference will play against the wildcard winner of their conference. The teams from the same conference will face eachother until a team won. The conference champion will face the other conference champion to become national champion.