TOKYO – Sinabi ni Chito Salud, ang dating league commissioner at ngayon ay PBA president/chief executive officer, na kailangan nilang resolbahan ang ilang issues para sa darating na 41st season ng PBA na magsisimula sa Oktubre 18.
Tinukoy na ng mga league officials ang mga bagay na gusto nilang pag-aralan para mapanatiling masigla at malakas ang PBA na ipinagmamalaki ng mga Filipino basketball fans.
“We reported to the board the performance of the league last season. Re-venue-wise, combined both the PBA and PBA Properties, there was an overall growth of three percent. But while the sponsorship aspect increased, the mix of the growth is not good because the core business of the PBA which is really gate attendance and gate receipts are down,” ani Salud.
Bumagsak ang gate attendance at gate sales ng PBA ng 10 percent at 18 percent, ayon sa pagkakasunod, sa nakaraang dalawang taon.
Noong 2013 ay kumita ang PBA Season 39 ng P248 milyon sa gate receipts.
“There are aspects that we want to take a closer look at and report to the board during the next board meeting to see how we can address the current situation,” ani Salud.
Nabanggit din ang pagkakaroon ng hindi balanseng labanan sa hanay ng tatlong expansion teams laban sa siyam na regular members.
“We want our expansion teams to become more competitive, to prevent predictability of the games, to make the games they’re involved with more exciting,” wika naman ni PBA board chairman Robert Non.
Balak din ng liga na maghanap ng mas ma-laking playing venue para sa kanilang mga laro sa susunod na season.
“We want to avoid playing in smaller venues, meaning venues that are not either Smart Araneta Coliseum or MOA because the capacity and convenience of those venues have an impact on the gate attendance,” ani Salud.
Tinukoy pa ng mga PBA officials ang epekto ng iskedyul sa gate attendance.
“We want to study the impact of the extra game day that was introduced this season. We came from a four-game day week to five-game day week, that extra game day being Tuesday. We want to study the impact of that extra game day because we understand that our industry is market driven and there could be some budget constraints involved with respect to our fans,” ani Salud. “We also want to study and see the impact of the schedule of our games. That is also something new for this season,” dagdag pa nito. (NB)