Pacquiao growing MPBL brands

MANILA, Philippines — Boxing legend Manny Pacquiao is nowadays focused instead on the sport he first fell in love with – basketball.

And there’s no stopping the retired boxer – who in 2017 founded the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) that is going strong to this day – from growing his basketball brands.

He now also runs a junior version of the MPBL and a women’s league – the ongoing 14-team WMPBL.

In a gathering Sunday with MPBL team owners in preparation for the league’s 7th Season, Pacquiao bared his grand plan to keep cultivating the sport starting at the grassroots level.

“Yung plano ko talaga is nationwide, inter-barangay para lahat ng grassroots level (talents) ma-discover natin, mabigyan ng chance. By stage sila, from barangay to Junior MPBL then MPBL,” the former eight-division world champion said at the Milky Way Cafe in Makati City.

The 46-year-old Pacquiao stressed he will remain a basketball guy, recalling it was the first sport he took up before being lured into boxing.

“Passionate lang talaga ako sa basketball – ‘yan talaga ang una kong hilig before boxing,” he said.

Pacquiao blamed it on the omnipresent basketball court.

“Bakit basketball? Before ako naging boksingero, sa bahay namin, yung sa tinitirhan namin, may basketball court kaagad paglabas, tabi ng bahay ba. So ‘nung bata pa kami, namulat na sa basketball,” he said.