Air Asia, a prominent sports sponsor, will be the official airline partner of the new Asean Basketball League, providing teams with free flights to games across south east Asia.  The airline already flies to all ten Asean countries, across 113 routes.

Tony Fernandes, group CEO of Air Asia and one of the founders of the ABL, said of the deal: “Air Asia is proud to be associated with another initiative that aims to promote an Asean (Association of South East Asian nations) identity among the 600 million people of the region.”

Air Asia has a multitude of sports sponsorships across Asia, as well as sponsoring the WilliamsF1 team in Formula One. Fernandes is the team principal of the new Lotus F1 team, which is backed by a group of Malaysian entrepreneurs.

Kuhan Foo, chief executive of the ABL, added: ““AirAsia’s sponsorship of ABL brings the league closer to the center of the sporting arena. The airline’s great connectivity and flight frequencies will allow us to more easily bring the games to the various ASEAN cities that will be hosting us. These will also allow us to keep in closer touch with the fan bases that we expect to grow as ABL gains popularity. We will be holding games all over Asean.”

The ABL started in October and currently features six teams from across the region: Philippines Patriots, Thailand Tigers, Satria Muda BritAmu, Brunei Barracudas and the Singapore Slingers.