The return of the Philippine Basketball League

A press release was sent to sports editors and writers late Monday afternoon regarding the return of the Philippine Basketball League after almost a year of hiatus. The target date for the season-opening tournament is Feb. 26.

The release announced that six teams have confirmed their participation in the league's return with Pharex, Agrinurture (Ani-FCA), Cobra and Excelroof as holdovers from the previous tournament while adding Hobe Bihon and Cafe France as its new participants.

And as rumored for months, Sports Vision, the group that was instrumental in the formation of the Shakey's V-League in 2004, will handle the management of the revived league with a rookie draft to be held on Feb. 5.

The timing of this announcement is interesting since the PBA recently announced the formation of the D-League and the PBL being inactive after a joint venture with Liga Pilipinas in the formation of the short-lived Tournament of the Philippines.

Today, the PBA will have the D-League as one of the agendas in an owners meeting somewhere in Greenhills. This announcement will perhaps play a key role in the future of this project.

The D-League is somewhat of an answer to the PBL's inactivity with almost similar rules such as allowing players 17-26 years old to participate.

The revived PBL is likely a soft launch as it is trying to recover from financial woes and the departure of some teams that led to the league's downturn. However, the sustainability of the league is still a question mark and it's success or downfall will be determined through the upcoming tourney.

But barring any hitches, this is major news for basketball players. Many are PBA free agents and the ASEAN Basketball League is nearing its completion, thus making Filipino cagers playing for the six participating teams in that league to find jobs after the season.

The league's golden years came in the PABL era of the 1980's when players such as Alvin Patrimonio, Benjie Paras, Bong Alvarez, Samboy Lim and Vergel Meneses were able to use the league as stepping stones in their legendary basketball careers.

In the 1990's, the PBL's popularity somewhat diminished but saw the long title reigns of Tanduay Rhum, Hapee Toothpaste and Welcoat Paints while seeing the start of Fil-Ams Asi Taulava and Eric Menk in the Philippine basketball.

The previous decade saw a bit of a revived interest in the league. With the soaring popularity of college basketball, member teams were able to tap school teams as core members of their ballclubs. At the same time, Harbour Centre won a record seven straight titles from 2006-2009.

The last PBL tournament was held from mid-February until late-March of last year with Excelroof, led by San Sebastian stars Jimbo Aquino and Calvin Abueva, beat Pharex B-Complex via a sweep of the best-of-three series.

The league has been quiet since.

PBL-Liga: A match made in heaven?

After months of negotiations and planning stages, the seeds of the merger between the Philippine Basketball League and Liga Pilipinas which is dubbed as the Tournament of the Philippines starts tomorrow at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.

Nine teams will join this tournament, a preparatory for an eventual merger, with three coming from the PBL (Ascof Lagundi, Cobra Energy Drink and Ani-FCA) and six Liga squads (Cebu, Misamis Oriental, Laguna, Taguig, Mandaue and General Santos City).

Debuting in the first leg, since this cagefest will use the traditional Liga format that gives corresponding points based on performance for each leg, are host Ani-FCA, Ascof Lagundi, Cebu and Laguna.

Officials from both leagues expressed optimism with the partnership which they hoped for a full-blown merger come the next conference around October.

But is it going to be a match made in heaven?

This tournament will play a factor in whether an merger would occur. There are a number of issues that both leagues will face such as costs (which PBL teams need to adjust), logistics and personalities involved.

The longevity of the participating squads is also a concern. PBL teams deal with the way their respective companies perform in the economy. They usually lose money on advertising expense to run a basketball team as a way to promote their product.

On the other hand, Liga squads (except for the likes of Cebu) survive on support of the City government. Certain public officials give their thumbs up on fielding teams in also a way not only as part of their local government's sports program but also promote themselves as a good public service person (yeah, that's the harsh reality of it).

So a mix of commercial and provincial teams plus officials of both leagues in one tournament. It's makes the TOP interesting to observe as they hold their first leg. It's either going to be a PBL or Liga-dominated flavor but the idea of later seeing the fancied Cebu Ninos, with an immaculate 21-0 record, against a Cobra team, perhaps with some former UE players and Jai Reyes on its fold, or Ascof with PBL MVP Vic Manuel leading the pack.

Let's see how this PBL-Liga tourney goes.