Basketball tourism

What could be the biggest tourist arrivals that will likely surge to the Philippines is the country’s hosting of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 this August 25 to September 10. The World Cup is the biggest and grandest showpiece of the International Basketball Federation, the world cage body with 212 national federations from across the globe. A total of 32 national teams will converge in the country to slug it out for the World Cup championship.

So we can only imagine the huge turnout of people who would come from around the world to cheer for their respective country’s flags and banners. That’s how Manuel “Manny” V. Pangilinan – who is fondly called in his initials MVP – looks at the country’s co-hosting with Japan and Indonesia the forthcoming 19th FIBA World Cup.

For starters, at least 300 officials representing these 32 accredited national teams arrived in Manila last week. They flew here to witness the elaborate draw rites to determine which countries compete against each other in the preliminary rounds of the 2023 FIBA World Cup.

Qualified for the FIBA World Cup are five countries from Africa, seven from the Americas that include the United States (US), eight from Asia/Oceania (Philippines, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Iran, Jordan, China and Lebanon) and 12 from Europe.  For geographical distribution, each group is composed of eight competing national teams. For this World Cup, our Gilas Pilipinas team will face rivals from Angola, the Dominican Republic, and Italy.

So you see how excited and proud MVP is whenever he talks about the FIBA.

MVP told me so last week after Mike Toledo who is the official spokesman of the MVP’s flagship company Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) informed him about the confirmed FIBA Board courtesy call to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) at Malacañang Palace.

Indeed it took place last Friday with PBBM, MVP and other guests in attendance being dwarfed literally by the basketball giants who have played in the past FIBA World Cups and are now members of the FIBA Central Board. With their towering presence, Dirk Nowitzki and Yao Ming stood behind PBBM and MVP in the group picture at the end of their Palace courtesy call.

The two basketball legends flew in to grace Saturday’s draw ceremony for the FIBA Championship. Nowitzki of Germany is currently the chairman of the FIBA Players’ Commission. Yao of China is among the most iconic basketball players of all time who emerged as the top scorer in the 2006 FIBA World Cup.

Our veteran STAR Sports Editor Nelson Beltran supplied many of these details. Beltran shares MVP’s optimism that the upcoming 2023 FIBA World Cup would really draw in very huge foreign tourist arrivals to the Philippines. From his personal experience, Beltran attested to the drawing capacity for world tourists of the FIBA tournaments, one of which he covered when it was held in Seville, Spain in 2014.

Beltran cheerfully regaled us on the game between our own Gilas team against their FIBA rivals. Beltran was also awed by the nationalism of our countrymen and the great passion of Pinoys on the game of basketball, with many of them flying from all over the world to root for our Gilas team. All basketball passionate people matched the rambunctious cheering and wild rooting for their own countrymen in all FIBA games, he noted. Unfortunately, Beltran rued, our Gilas hoopsters lost all their games in the grouping.

However, Beltran added, 2014 was a big breakthrough for the Philippine basketball. It marked the Philippine national team’s return to the World Cup, ending a 36-year absence.

With the national federation under the leadership of MVP, Gilas Pilipinas qualified for a second straight time in the 2019 World Cup in China. And now the SBP, under the stewardship of MVP, is bringing to the country the quadrennial FIBA World Cup for the second time after 1978.

As the head of the SBP, MVP represents our country in the FIBA and currently sits at the powerful FIBA Central Board.

Toledo credited MVP’s brinksmanship that won the rights for the Philippines to co-host again the FIBA World Cup. By stroke of fate, he enthused, this will be full circle for the “father and son” Presidents of the Philippines doing the ceremonial tossing of the ball at the opening games of the FIBA World Cup more than three decades apart.

The tournament was hosted the first time around by the Philippines from October 1 to 14, 1978. The games were held in Rizal Memorial Coliseum in Manila and Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City. It was then PBBM’s late father, former President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos who made the ceremonial toss of the opening game. Following this, the Philippines did not compete in the FIBA again until 2014, when the team finished in 21st place.

Meanwhile, Ramon S. Ang, the president and chief executive officer of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) announced that their conglomerate officially signed on as a partner in the country’s hosting of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023. Ang thanked MVP and the FIBA leadership for the opportunity to take part in the historic event.

“After almost three years of the pandemic, we want to say that we are open for business. Filipinos are excited to welcome athletes from all over the world, and we are all eager to watch the very best teams play in our homecourt,” Ang said.

In an official statement, the FIBA announced their Central Board approved the holding of the final stage of the World Cup at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.

The Philippine Arena, though, will still host two opening-round games in the group phase, including Gilas’ first World Cup home outing in 45 years.

The projected droves of foreign tourist arrivals when the 2023 FIBA World Cup season starts are without exaggeration. Compared to the wishful thinking of every new Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary aspiring to bring in six million tourist arrivals to the Philippines at least each year, only basketball tourism can truly deliver this into reality for once in this lifetime.