Salud on PBA expansion: This is the best time to join

PBA Commissioner Chito Salud. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Hard on the heels of another successful season, PBA commissioner Chito Salud believes “this is the best time to join” the league as it opens itself for possible expansion.

Salud pointed out the league’s constant increase in its attendance and gate receipts for several years now and the PBA certainly has no plans of stopping.

“I think the PBA has enjoyed a resurgence of some sort over the last three years, and taking a look at the record, we’ve been experiencing an average of ten percent increase in our attendance every year also in gate receipts,” Salud said during the PBA Preseason press conference held at the Makati Shangri-La Wednesday. “So from the time we reverted to the three-conference format all of my chairmen from Rene Pardo to Mert Mondragon to Robert Non and now Mon Segismundo hopefully enjoyed banner years each year.”

PBA earlier expressed its interest in expanding from the current 10-team field with chairman Mon Segismundo of Meralco looking at it as one of the main priorities under his watch this 39th season, which comes off wraps with a three-game in three major cities opening day this Sunday.

But Segimundo knows it won’t be that easy getting potential team owners to invest.

“This is not going to happen overnight. This is a slow burn. What we’re going to try to achieve this season is to plant the seeds. Create the foundation for us to talk to potential team owners, probably conduct some meetings with them,” Segismundo said.

“But at the same time we would like to be opportunistic if there’s one team owner or two that’s ready; of course we’ll start considering their entry. So we just want to make sure that for this season given the fact that we have many players we have an abundance of talent that somehow most of them get to play.”

The recent PBA Rookie Draft saw a record of 79 hopefuls apply for the draft with 44 getting picked and almost half of them were signed to a team.

The league is hopeful that it won’t take long before it welcomes additional members to its growing family and Salud even cited GlobalPort and its owner Mikee Romero as an example to potential owners.

“For all corporations out there who are thinking of joining, this is the best time to join. And I think the best example I can cite is in seeking that potential is GlobalPort, Mikee Romero,” he said.

“Of course, we all know Mikee Romero as a gentleman sportsman but who wouldn’t like to be in the position that he finds himself in today. His team is known, he’s making the right moves, his corporate brand, his corporate name is now known.”