Jr. NBA Cebu Rebounds

When plans were underway to have a Jr. NBA School Clinic held in Cebu this year, many had serious concerns over whether or not it would click. Even the people from the Jr. NBA weren’t too “hot” about the idea. After coming to Cebu in the past between 2008 and 2011, attendance numbers weren’t that impressive. The benchmark for attendance were the Jr. NBA clinics in Davao and Cagayan de Oro which drew over 1,000 players. This was what they were looking for. Cebu’s attendance figures? Ayaw na lang. Resigned to toning down expectations, they were looking at gathering around 500 participants: 250 in the morning and another 250 in the afternoon for the school clinic held last Saturday. Sunday was a workshop for coaches.

The actual figures from the school clinic? 1,152 participants. A new record. Set by Cebu Basketball. Beyond the expected. Flatfooted the Jr. NBA people were. As Jr. NBA Coach Sefu Bernad shared a picture on Instagram, ‘Basketball: Only In The Philippines...! They said 200, but 500 kids showed up for the morning Jr NBA / Jr WNBA clinic in Cebu. Wow! Another 500+ projected for the afternoon too. #LetsGo” The participants came from some 87 schools, 11 cities or towns and three provinces. And for the first time, girls also joined in the fun with a record of 152 showing up.

Proudly Cebuano. But how did Cebu Basketball achieve this? While we’re hear more about the Jr. NBA, its coaches and the players involved, it’s also worth giving credit to the people who insisted to bring the clinic to Cebu. Phoenix Petroleum, the firm responsible for hosting the Davao clinic last year, insisted to go to Cebu in 2014 even if they are in a way Davao-based where they have a full complement of manpower. They refused to be intimidated by the concerns about a forecasted low attendance and worked to overcome it. It all started when Phoenix Cebu’s Fidel “Buboy” Aloba, upon the directions of Phoenix Marketing Manager Celina Matias, got in touch with local basketball officials of the CESAFI and the Cebu Youth Basketball League (CYBL). Letters, emails and texts were exchanged, then a brainstorming session was held to discuss how to generate the targeted numbers for the clinic. The venue would not be a problem. Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu’s Lux Oriens Gym in Canduman, Mandaue was the perfect fit with its three courts, bleachers, and a stage, all under one roof. In fact, when the actual clinic took place, all three courts had to be used, veering away from the original plan to just utilize two courts and devote another for the clinic’s sponsors.

Market it! It was a consensus that a hard sell drive was needed for a communication campaign. Moreover, there was a need to reach out to as many basketball loving kids as possible. In the past, the primary means of communication were through basketball coaches and teams, but this wasn’t enough. This was just a small segment of the bigger and wider basketball market among the youth. There are more of the regular and simple basketball kids who play for fun since they’re not good enough to make it to their school teams. They had to be included in the mix. But how to reach them? Let’s just say the communication campaign was a nice mix of traditional media, direct marketing and networking. The first dilemma was the Sinulog. Nobody dares go up against the Sinulog when it comes to air time and media space. One will end up drowning in all the clutter. Radio ads were aired while the websites of the Jr. NBA and their Facebook page started their campaigns. It must have helped that the first Jr. NBA clinic of the year was held earlier in Manila January 18-9 (Sinulog weekend). Somewhere working behind the scenes were networking efforts with the Department of Education (DEPED) and the Cebu Youth Basketball League (CYBL). Phoenix’s Alob and Minda Barrion-Dimarucut visited DEPED Region 7 OIC Carmelita Dulangon and Vivian Ginete, calling on the region’s public schools to join the clinic. An extra pitch was also made to DEPED Mandaue’s Adeline Luarez, the division’s head for sports. This was getting the public school sector involved in the show. The CYBL timed the opening ceremony of its Alaska Basketball Cup Cebu 2014 on the same day, after the Jr. NBA clinic which is also presented by Alaska. No less than Alaska’s Jojo Lastimosa made a pitch to the CYBL’s 45 teams to attend the clinic, guarantying the organizers of at least 400 players for the afternoon session alone. Everything else in between spread through word of mouth and through social media.

 The result was phenomenal. Nobody expected a Cebu basketball clinic to reach over a thousand students. There was a mix of students from both private and public schools, regardless of whether or not they were members of a basketball team. The Lux Oriens Gym suddenly “shrunk” with all the participants.

Looking back, we also realized that more could’ve been done to reach out to even other basketball enthusiasts. But at the end of the day, Cebu Basketball proved all those doubters wrong, scoring a monster rebound.

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