Big plans for TAT

The Asian Tournament (TAT) has successfully staged its big summer event, and is almost done with its Winter Championship. With the final leg scheduled for the first week of December, plans are already afoot for 2025. Chief Operations Officer Joe Wang sat down for an exclusive interview with The STAR and dwAN 1206 AM to discuss the comprehensive calendar for next year. It all begins in Passi, Iloilo in April, with a total of six legs all over the continent.

“We want to be the premiere international-focused league in the region,” says Wang. “We have Asian imports, we have international imports, and we’re focused on the development of local players. We want to have good basketball, bring in prominent names, bring in NBA players. We want to integrate an element of entertainment as well as basketball.”

Word about TAT already spread throughout the continent. Next year‘s summer tournament will visit China again, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, and other countries in Southeast Asia. But for Wang, the most intense basketball fans of all are in the Philippines, hands-down.

”Oh, my God. It has got to absolutely be the Philippines,” Wang replies without batting an eye. “I’ve traveled to all corners of the world. I have never seen a fandom like this in the Philippines. Just the influence basketball has on the population is incredible to me.”

TAT’s Summer Tournament will have six weeklong legs spanning April to June. It will then conduct another Winter Tournament stretching across the last two quarters of the year. As it grows over time, it will continue to expand and will inevitably cover most of the year. This early, many big names in the NBA are looking at TAT as the next step in their careers.

So far, Philippine teams have performed well in TAT. The finals of the last leg was a showdown between first leg winner Aces and home team Biñan. Hopefully, this trend will hold, and Filipinos can proudly say that they stand shoulder to shoulder with the giants of Asian basketball.