MOA Arena opens doors to UAAP

MANILA, Philippines - The P3.6 billion MOA (Mall of Asia) Arena will be the venue of eight of 14 playing dates in the UAAP senior men’s basketball schedule for the first round starting with a doubleheader featuring host National University against the University of the East and the University of Santo Tomas against Far Eastern University today.

Five playing dates are set at the Araneta Coliseum and one twinbil – UST against Adamson and De La Salle against NU – is calendared on Aug. 11 at the PhilSports Ultra Arena. The La Salle-Ateneo game will be played at the MOA Arena on July 28.

The first-ever basketball game to be staged at the 64,085 square meter MOA Arena was a PBA Governors Cup semifinal contest where B-Meg beat Talk ‘N’ Text, 94-91, last July 7. The six-level facility will host the exhibition match between an 11-man US touring team, made up of mostly NBA legends, and a 10-man PBA legends squad on July 18.

For the UAAP, the MOA Arena is pulling no stops in welcoming the country’s top varsity teams. It’s timely that NU is hosting this season’s competitions. NU and the MOA Arena are owned by the Henry Sy family of the SM Group. Under the UAAP’s traditional sequence, NU should’ve hosted in 2010-11 but traded places with La Salle for the chance to celebrate the MOA Arena’s inaugurals this year.

While the MOA Arena may be considered NU’s homecourt, it is actually the UAAP’s new hub. SM Prime Holdings president and NU chairman Hans Sy left no stone unturned in making sure the state-of-the-art facility provides a world-class venue for basketball.  Sy supervised the MOA Arena’s construction from start to finish. The Denver architectural firm Sink Combs Dethlefs patterned the building after the Atlanta Hawks’ home Philips Arena in the NBA. Seating for basketball will accommodate 14,549 with a capacity of 4,075 for general admission and 4,459 for lower box. The upper box will hold 3,498, patron 1,746 and corporate suites, 771. Every general admission ticket is guaranteed a seat. The facility was configured to give every seat a clear view with “nosebleeding” a thing of the past.

“The Arena has People With Disability or PWD-friendly facilities in every section,” said MOA Arena operations senior manager Jacob Macapagal. “There are eight elevator openings in each floor, two in every corner and 12 toilets, also in each floor. Players will have access to the dressing room from the basement where there are parking slots for 85 cars and four buses. Four dressing rooms are linked to a meet-and-greet lounge with a direct entrance to the court.”

A distinct feature is the third level where 41 corporate or VIP boxes are situated. A corporate box carries a lease price tag of between P9 to P15 Million depending on the size. The seating capacity of each box ranges from 15 to 30. There are 31 VIP boxes leased out while 10 are held for rental on an event-to-event basis. Each box has its own toilet, sitting room, mini-bar and gallery seating.

Last February, Sy was invited by the NBA to witness the All-Star extravaganza in Orlando and the experience opened his eyes to tweak a few more features at the MOA Arena. “We’ve incorporated certain things I observed in the Orlando stadium during the last NBA All-Star Game and I think our arena is truly state-of-the-art. We’re ready for basketball.”

For the game, the MOA Arena uses the Robbins maplewood hardcourt from Cincinnati, the same surface at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Amway Center in Orlando and Conseco Fieldhouse in Indiana. Robbins supplied the court for the recent FIBA Olympic qualifying competition in Venezuela. The record shows that 21 of the past 25 NBA champions and 13 of the 16 NBA playoff qualifiers compete or practice on a Robbins floor. The estimate is 90 percent of NBA teams play on a Robbins court. Other basketball equipment in the MOA Arena are the NBA-standard Spalding goals (three systems were brought in, including one on stand-by as replacement), an eight-sided center-hung LED Daktronics scoreboard and two-sided shot clocks.

The Daktronics 46-ton octagon scoreboard was manufactured in South Dakota. A team from the US firm flew in to install the P76 Million scoreboard and data system. Amigo Entertainment Technologies head Wopsy Zamora was contracted to supply the Daktronics set-up. The scoreboard was hoisted to the center of the MOA Arena employing a 120-ton crane and 24 men.

“Daktronics powers about 90 percent of NBA arenas,” said Zamora. “Our center-hung scoreboard was made in the US particularly for the MOA Arena. It has four giant LED high-definition monitors hooked up to the TV coveror and in between the monitors on the sides are four more screens to make an uneven octagon similar to the Memphis Grizzlies scoreboard. Additionally, each goal is equipped with two transparent, double-faced shot clocks – one six feet above the goal and another, below it on a 90 degree angle or perpendicular to provide a view from an angle. Our unified show control system is linked to LED video displays with 18 meters of advertising space on the scorers table adjacent to the players bench and 36 meters across the floor on the press table. You feel like you’re in an NBA stadium when you’re at the MOA Arena.”

It took two years to complete the MOA Arena. “Late last year, nobody believed we could open on May 21 for the Lady Gaga shows,” said Sy. “That’s because we had no roof. But not too many knew that we were building from the inside so work was progressing. I don’t believe in doing three shifts to work 24 hours. Our work hours were from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Before we opened with Lady Gaga, the last thing we did was bolt the seats down. I went around to inspect all the seats to make sure every seat was bolted. Then, I called everyone together, the whole working team. I drove them hard from the beginning and they delivered. I wanted to thank them for a job well done.”