in october 2018, following the demise of the south east australian basketball league (seabl), basketball victoria announced a new senior elite league to take the reins as australia's pre-eminent semi-professional basketball league. all victorian seabl teams joined the new league, while knox raiders, eltham wildcats, ringwood hawks and waverley falcons moved up from the big v championship division. the north-west tasmania thunder men and launceston tornadoes women also kept their place, as did basketball australia's centre of excellence teams. in february 2019, the league was named nbl1.