The NBL, one of the two top men¡¯s basketball leagues in Japan, has endured a chaotic 2014-15 campaign, and the disarray reached its nadir with the management change of the Tsukuba Robots.
It came out of the blue for the fans. Just a week into the season in October, the NBL announced that Ibaraki Sports Academy (ISA), the Robots¡¯ management company, would no longer run the club because of financial woes and the league would temporarily take over the team.
In early December, a new management company, Tsukuba Sports Entertainment (TSE), was approved as the team¡¯s owner, with Takashi Yamaya, who had just stepped down as the league¡¯s chief operating officer when ISA exited the picture, as its president.
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