Founded in 1964, the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) is the top tier basketball league in Germany. Even though the level of play is generally not considered to be as high as in other European leagues, the BBL managed to lure a large amount of foreign players to Germany. In fact, native Germans are the minority nowadays and often solely used to match the requirement of having three German players on the roster.

Despite these issues, the Basketball Bundesliga provided a starting platform for players such as Dirk Nowitzki, Marcin Gortat and Detlef Schrempf who became NBA stars later on in their career. The most dominant team of the past decade proved to be Alba Berlin who won the title eight times in the last twelve years.

However, German basketball teams traditionally had very little success in international competitions like the Euroleague and ULEB Eurocup. The only German team that was able to make some noise in Europe is the aforementioned team of Alba Berlin. With the recent construction of the O2 Arena they now own the biggest basketball stadium in Europe and hope to further extend their success in the Euroleague through increased revenue options.

Like other international leagues, the BBL uses FIBA rules instead of NBA or NCAA rule sets. More specifically, the 3-point line is significantly closer to the basket while the basketball court is slightly smaller. Moreover, players are allowed to go for the rebound as soon as the ball hits the rim where as the NBA uses the cylinder-interference rule.

You can watch BBL stars like Julius Jenkins and Craig Callahan when you join www.watchlivenba.com and obtain access to watch all the games throughout the entire season.