  the liga acb (english: acb league), known as the liga endesa (english: endesa league) for sponsorship reasons, is the first tier level men's professional basketball league in spain. it began in 1957, with the name of liga nacional, and was originally organized by the spanish basketball federation. the league changed to its current form, beginning with the 1983â84 season, after the asociaciÃ³n de clubs de baloncesto (acb) took control over the league. the league is rated as one of the top three european national domestic/regional leagues in the european national basketball league rankings system. the acb league, which is played under fiba rules, currently consists of 18 teams, of which the most successful have been real madrid and fc barcelona regal. == liga championship rules == thumb|real madrid playing against fuenlabrada each team has to play all the other teams in its division twice, once at home and once away. this means that in liga acb the league's regular season ends after all teams play 34 matches. at the end of the league, the eight best teams in the standings start a play-off, pitting the first place team in the standings versus the 8th place team in the standings, and so on. there are three playoff rounds, each consisting of five game series, and the winner of the finals round becomes the champion of the liga acb. this is similar to the nba playoffs system, but shorter. each season, the two last qualified teams of the regular season are relegated to leb oro and replaced by the two first qualified teams of this league. === arena standards === currently, liga acb clubs must have home arenas that 
Basketball_leagues_in_Europe Basketball_leagues_in_Spain Liga_ACB Sports_leagues_established_in_1957