PBA predicts another banner year

The Philippine Basketball Association is looking forward for another blockbuster year as it unveils its 2006-07 season at the Araneta Coliseum Sunday with an impressive package that includes new team, promising young players complementing reliable old stars, and new rules and innovations geared toward making PBA games more exciting.

PBA officials, led by board chairman Ricky Vargas and commissioner Noli Eala, expressed excitement and enthusiasm about the coming season in a grand press launch at the Manila Hotel yesterday.

"The coming season is a challenge for us to do better and we in the board will face that challenge head on. Together, I know we can overcome that challenge," said Vargas.

"We look forward with pride and honor to a new PBA season, one that we know will be full of expectations following a year marked by significant increase in gate receipts, attendance and television ratings," said Eala.

"But with the support and trust of the entire board under chairman Ricky Vargas, team officials, players, the media, our TV coveror ABC-5 and most importantly, the fans themselves, I am confident that the league will soar to even greater heights this coming 32nd season," Eala added.

He said the PBA formally opens its 2006-07 campaign in a night of music, fun and stars Sunday. After the elaborate rites evolving around the theme "Pride is Back" with the Apo Hiking Society as hosts, crowd darling Barangay Ginebra and newcomer Welcoat clash in a lone game kicking off hostilities in the Philippine Cup that will last for five months.

By Friday, Red Bull and Alaska Milk should be back in town after slugging it out in an official overseas match in Guam Thursday. The Bulls and the Aces depart for the tiny US territory in the Pacific today.

A new team on the block, an elaborate scheme called "20/20" and a couple of novel projects aimed at benefiting the fans are among things making league officials confident of surpassing last year’s banner season.

In fact, the PBA top movers’ main goal "is to assault the league all-time high records attained in 1996."

"We’re coming off a banner season and we want to sustain it, so we’re looking at a 20-20 vision. We want a 20 percent increase in live gate attendance that hopefully can boost the PBA’s net income by another 20 percent," said Vargas.

The project, according to Eala, will be spiced up by a series of marketing and promotional stuff, one of which is a 30-minute, once-a-week show called PBA Entertainment.

As a way of giving back to the fans, Eala said promo ventures such as the "High Five," lowering of ticket prices and the availability of more ticket outlets will be implemented this season to make the league more accessible and affordable to the fans.

The PBA will be implementing a more methodical ticketing system to lure more fans to watch the games live.

An innovative project being implemented starting this season is the All Team Access Pass, a scheme similar to the league’s regular season-ticket pass but on a per team basis.

Under the system, fans can purchase season tickets to games of their favorite teams, with corresponding privileges according to their seating areas at the Araneta Coliseum.

The P5 promo for General Admission seats are also being retained while ticket prices in Upper Box levels have been slashed by about 30 percent.

"Lahat ngayon tumataas, pero kami nagbababa ng presyo," said Eala. "But this is the brainchild of chairman Ricky Vargas as our way of giving back to fans the support the league has been getting from them all through these years."