Team owners’ reluctance to salary limits puzzles PVL chief

A general view of the crowd during Game 2 of the PVL All-Filipino Conference Finals between Creamline and Choco Mucho at Araneta Coliseum.–MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net

Enforcing the first-ever Rookie Draft in the PVL should get off without a hitch, based on the success of the recent two-day Combine.

And that will be the first of two critical activities the league sees necessary to ensure parity among its teams, with titles contested on as level a playing field as possible.

But the second item in the league’s fairness agenda—the salary cap—has run into some stiff opposition with the team owners themselves, something which befuddles the PVL leadership since it is the welfare of each and every franchise that it is looking out for.

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League president Ricky Palou talked at length to the Inquirer about this on Thursday, confused in a sense after some items in the PVL’s proposal for individual salary caps were rejected, particularly the maximum pay.

Wanton recruitment and spending have characterized the past off-seasons of the highly successful PVL, and Palou, after seeing firsthand what this could do to the league—having served as an executive of the Philippine Basketball Association for several years—wants to address them.

“Some of them (team owners) don’t like the P250,000 a month maximum pay,” Palou said over the phone, referring to the league proposal. “They think it’s too low and that a lot of their players are receiving more than that now.”

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The team owners also rejected Palou’s counter that live contracts stay, but after that, every player in the league should be governed by the individual limit.

However, the league didn’t encounter resistance as far as the minimum pay is concerned when it pitched for P50,000 a month, which Palou wants to happen after he had “heard of some teams paying some players just P30,000 (a month).”

Astronomical amounts

Unconfirmed reports have placed astronomical amounts as reasons behind some of the country’s brightest collegiate stars skipping their years of playing eligibility to turn pro, especially in the last two years when the league’s popularity reached unbelievable proportions.

Some of those reports claim to even have signing bonuses, cars and jobs for family members as perks just for players to sign up.

The Draft will be held July 8 with La Salle’s Thea Gagate to be picked first by Zus Coffee, and 46 other players awaiting as 12 teams set out to decide their fate.

As agreed upon with team owners, Gagate and the next four picks in the proceedings will be entitled to a maximum of P150,000 a month for the first year, with that figure gradually dwindling down for the lower selections.

Palou and the entire PVL leadership will again meet with the team owners to iron out these kinks. That meeting will take place the day after the Draft, and Palou will also propose a P50 million a year team cap.

“We haven’t talked about that yet, they have yet to hear my proposal of P50 million a year,” Palou continued. “It’s easy to think that some of the teams are spending more than that now. But we have to be careful so that things don’t blow out of proportion.