No-go for MBA-PBL merger

The planned merger between the Metropolitan Basketball Association and the Philippine Basketball League will have to be shelved for now.

This development came about after the Multi-Regional Board Inc., in its meeting on Monday, decided to stick with its original concept of regional competition.

"The MBA will stay regional in nature. We can’t afford to give up the provinces and shift our concentration on Metro Manila," said Ramon Tuason, the MBA director for marketing and business development, yesterday.

"We have established rapport with basketball fans in the countryside and we’d like to maintain that relationship," he added.

Talks were rife since last week that the MBA and the PBL, whose teams are Manila-based, would merge and form a unified league after businessman and basketball patron Joey Concepcion, president and chief executive officer of RFM Corp., offered to broker a meeting between the honchos of the two leagues.

Concepcion also gave the assurance that RFM would join the envisioned unified league.

In last week’s exploratory meeting, however, both parties failed to find enough reasons to co-exist as yet.

"If ever, the merger will have to wait until both leagues deemed it would be for their mutual benefit," said Tuason.

Concepcion, who once headed the PBL and was later chairman of the PBA board of governors, had said that the regional games of the MBA and the Metro Manila games of the PBL with varsity flavor can be a very good combination.

Concepcion also said that with the merger, operational costs could be reduced, thus making the league and maintaining a team more viable.

A merger of the MBA and PBL was envisioned to give birth to a super amateur league.