The PBA of tomorrow

The PBA is rapidly evolving and pulling in bigger and bigger audiences as it recasts its image for today’s competitive sports entertainment market. A strong D-League and growing women’s and youth programs have given it a stronger foothold into those two segments of society, backing up its formidable main product, the PBA conferences themselves. Now, the league continues to grow in accessibility to a voracious market. League commissioner Chito Narvasa realizes its greatest potential is yet to come, and it will not be measured by ticket sales.

“It’s like a restaurant. You can only fill it up so much,” Narvasa elaborates. “But you have a much bigger audience outside the venues. We have to go beyond brick and mortar business models.”

Given the enormity of the traffic problem Metro Manila faces, Narvasa is onto something.

MMDA data reveals that since 2014, there are at least 300,000 new cars registered in Metro Manila alone by the end of this year, that figure would already have reached one million. With no additional roads, there will be that many people sitting in their cars while PBA games are going on, a huge potential new audience for the league. Once the league creates a constant platform for that mobile audience to access the games, it will be a financial boon, no doubt. Once you can add to that the youth who are online much more than they watch television, you have an untapped audience in the tens of millions.

But there is still much to be said for brick and mortar stores, and the PBA will soon have many of its own. Narvasa’s team is studying and refining possible products for PBA stores to be rolled out once the template is finished. He feels that this is an underserviced market for fans.

Any and all merchandise provides revenues and free advertising for league members. The benefit to one benefits all. But the PBA commissioner is patient, as these things are part of a change in culture that he and the board are creating for its vast community. Advertising, marketing and merchandising of the individual league members and the league itself have planned synergies to present a stronger, united image of the league to its consuming public.

“A lot of the things we’re doing now are being done for the first time,” says Narvasa, who played for the Philippine men’s basketball team in the late 1970’s. “So we have to create a system for each of these projects. I’m very fortunate that the board shares the vision of doing new things and expanding the reach of the PBA.”

Already in place is a school tour, wherein students all over the country will be able to watch exhibition games, have meet and greet opportunities with PBA players, coaches and even league governors, and a chance to watch exclusive content created by the PBA. If you talk to any past or present PBA player, most of them will tell you how they were attracted to the game by an encounter with a PBA legend, or the experience of watching the games live or on television. Fortunately for the PBA, the league has strong ties with the Basketball Coaches Association of the Philippines, which was headed by Narvasa before he accepted the post of PBA commissioner.

The current BCAP president is Barangay Ginebra board governor Alfrancis Chua. The strong relationship gives the league unparalleled access to colleges and universities nationwide, creating a pipeline not only for future pro players, but for a wider audience among the youth.

The drive towards digital technology is a direct acknowledgment of how the youth are still relatively untouched as a market. Of the 40 to 45 million Filipinos in the country who are regularly online via smart phones and tablets, the great majority are in the youth sector.

Turning them onto the PBA will assure future generations of new fans. In the near future, the league will have a mechanism for getting feedback from the youth, so as to better improve the end product, which is the PBA brand itself.

The board has gone way beyond thinking about the games themselves, and is riding the wave of wireless technology in acknowledgment of the savvy of the youth in perceiving trends not just in sports, but in culture and entertainment.

But one of the biggest and most potent weapons the PBA will have in attracting new fans and reacquiring old ones is its rich history. The league has a plan to catalogue and restore its old games for old and new audiences. Realistically, it may take some time to bring back to full glory roughly 15,000 to 18,000 regular season, playoff and All-Star games and events the league has had over more than four decades, but it will be worth it to preserve these memories for posterity. And of course, it will be fun to start so many new debates on whether or not past players could defeat today’s best ones, or vice versa. The PBA’s library is perhaps its richest untapped treasure, and will endear itself to whole new generations of fans both here and abroad. The PBA is reshaping its image, incorporating its strong tradition of excellence and enjoyment and making it more pertinent to today’s youth. And all the more, we long-time fans have a reason to smile.