PBA: There’s a problem that needs fixing, says chair Ricky Vargas

FILE–TNT’s Calvin Oftana during a PBA Philippine Cup game against Meralco on April 7, 2024 at Ninoy Aquino Stadium in Manila where there were a lot of empty seats.–PBA IMAGES

OSAKA—”Yes, we have a problem. And we want to go back home with solutions to this.”

Those were the words of PBA chairman Ricky Vargas as he and his board of governors try to address the issue of crowd attendance that has been bugging the league’s leadership over the past few seasons.

The board and the Office of the Commissioner have buckled down to work here on Sunday as they try to chart the direction that the PBA will take heading into its 50th anniversary next year, and one of them is to make sure that they reel the crowd back into their venues.

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While viewership statistics released by Nielsen confirm that the PBA is still the No. 1 sports entertainment show back home, Vargas is taking this trip as a working vacation for everyone to pitch in their share and address the growing attendance concern.

PBA Board of Governors Raymund Zorilla of Phoenix, PBA chairman Ricky Vargas of TNT, Alfrancis Chua of Ginebra. PBA commissioner Willie Marcial and Ronald Dulatre of NLEX during a board meeting in Japan.–Musong R. Castillo/INQUIRER

“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 during a break in their session at Swissotel where the board allowed the media to observe. “Those numbers clearly belie the impression that the PBA is a dying league.”

The Nielsen figures show that the PBA owned 14 of the top 20 sports shows after the first two quarters of the year, with its games viewed more than the Philippine women’s volleyball team matches in the AVC Challenge Cup and the finals matches of the PVL All-Filipino Conference.

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All the top three shows were PBA games, and the six events in the top 20 that weren’t PBA were women’s volleyball matches.

“While this is good news to us, we want to convert these (numbers) into warm bodies inside our venues,” Vargas went on.

“These are the challenges we are facing, and we are looking at programs on how we can address them.” INQ