Aside from major changes in format and schedule, the country’s premier basketball league has bared more positive changes that will start with this year’s All-Star Week, which, for the first time in PBA history, will be held outside Metro Manila.
Buddy Encarnado, the new league chairman, yesterday said the annual extravaganza featuring the country’s biggest hardcourt heroes will be staged in Cebu City, widely considered the country’s basketball mecca, on Aug. 8 to 15.
The PBA All-Star game had been held out of town a couple of times, the last in Iloilo in 2000. But this is the first time that the whole week, including the fans day, will be held in a provincial venue.
The PBA, according to the chairman, will also revert to its old All-Star format dividing the teams into North and South after the previous format of Veterans against the Rookies-Sophomores-Juniors (RSJ) side.
The regular sideshows–Three-Point Shootout, Slam-Dunk Contest and Buzzer-Beater–will be held with more innovations in store for the league’s legions of fans from the Queen City of the South.
Encarnado made the announcement during the weekly PSA Forum at the Manila Pavilion where he appeared along with PBL commissioner Chino Trinidad.
The PBA, which has shifted from the three-conference to the two-conference format per season starting this year, also plans to hold more games in countries like Guam, Hong Kong and Brunei.
There are also plans of holding games in the United States and in more Middle East countries. Provincial games are also expected to reach farther north and south under Encarnado’s term, which ends middle of next year.
"We will always try to come up with new plans. And they’re not just to ensure that the PBA fully recovers from a bad year last year but to ensure that the PBA will be here forever," said Encarnado of Sta. Lucia Realty.
"It’s not only in Metro Manila where the PBA has a great following so we plan to hold more games out of the country and in the provinces. We plan to go to places the PBA has not gone to before," he added.