The league was founded in 1920. Since 1925 it has been organized by the Federazione Italiana Pallacanestro , the Italian basketball federation.
In 1974 it was divided into two seasons, the A1 series and the A2 series. As of the 2001/02 season, the seasons were divided into two separate leagues. The teams from the former Serie A1 now played in the Lega Basket Serie A and the teams from the former Serie A2 in the now more autonomously organized Legadue , which has been called Serie A2 again since 2013 .
Since the sports-qualified clubs Basket Napoli and Orlandina Basket for the 2008/09 season did not receive a license and no other clubs were allowed to move up, 16 clubs will take part in the league between 2009 and 2019 instead of the previous 18. Nuova Sebastiani Basket Rieti , who had played as Martos Napoli , was excluded from the game in April 2010, all games of the team were taken out of the rating.
17 (up to 2008: 18 and between 2009 and 2019: 16) teams are taking part in the league, after the original increase to 18 teams for the 2019/20 season did not materialize due to Avellino's withdrawal. The eight best-placed teams take part in the playoffs after the regular season . These are played in the first two rounds in the best-of-five mode, in the final series in the best-of-seven mode. The worst team is relegated to Serie A2 (until 2013: Legadue ; 2013/14: Divisione Nazionale A Gold), the second division.
Explanations: M = master; P = cup winner; N = newbie
Others
The main sponsor of Serie A was for a long time the Italian mobile operator Telecom Italia Mobile ( TIM ), from 2012 to 2016 it was the Turkish electronics group Beko , and from the season 2016/17 to 2018/19 the mobile operator of the Italian post office PosteMobile .
The player records are based on the data from the 1948/49 season, with the exception of the blocks, which are only available from the 1976/77 season. Players still active as of June 30, 2018 are highlighted in green. (As of June 30, 2018)