Members of the board (from left) Raymond Zorilla of Phoenix, Ricky Vargas of TNT, Alfrancis Chua of Barangay Ginebra, Ronald Dulatre (standing) of NLEX and commissioner Willie Marcial begin planning talks.—MUSONG R. CASTILLO
OSAKA—The leadership of the PBA has admitted to having “a problem” and is dead set in coming up with solutions to reel the fans back to its venues, including the implementation of changes in the product—the game—itself.
“Yes, we have a problem. And we want to go back home with solutions to this,” chair Ricky Vargas said on Sunday during a break in the board’s annual planning session at Swissotel here.
Vargas talked that way even if Nielsen figures showed that the league still lords it over any other sports brand in the country for the first half of the year.
“The statistics, though impressive, still doesn’t take us away from the issue that there is still a problem with regards to (live) attendance,” Vargas said as the board allowed the media to observe. “Those numbers clearly belie the impression that the PBA is a dying league.”
Two big adjustments in the game that are likely to get the board’s nod is the implementation of the four-point shot and the return of two imports per team in one of the three conferences for the coming season.
Barangay Ginebra governor Alfrancis Chua believes that the four-point shot could make the game more exciting since it will probably rule out the defense playing zone, hence, making the game faster.
“That’s just one of the things that have been suggested early,” Chua said. “From a basketball standpoint, I think that rule has a lot of promise since it will make the games faster, and the endgames more exciting.”
There was a lot of excitement during the last All-Star Game, held in Bacolod, where the four-point shot was experimented on. Robert Bolick even completed a five-point play.
The first conference of the 49th Season will be the Governors’ Cup next month where teams can field imports of no more than 6-foot-6 in height. And for the second import-spiced event where there will be a guest team in Hong Kong Eastern, the board is open to the idea of having each team field two imports of unlimited height.
“That will all depend on what the final discussion will be with the guest team,” Chua said. “If it happens that they have two imports, we are open to playing with two for each of our teams. It’s still all on the table.” INQ