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PBA As A Marketing Platform

The Philippines has a long history with basketball dating back to 1910 when the American colonial government first introduced the sport. It has become deeply ingrained in Philippine culture and society, transcending demographics. The Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) was formed 40 years ago and has become a major sports and entertainment institution. It is also considered one of the most powerful marketing platforms in the country, driving brand awareness as it draws large television audiences of over 50 million viewers. While the PBA provides major marketing benefits for corporations that sponsor teams, some argue this close brand integration may undermine the sentimental connection between teams and fans by reducing the relationship to one purely based on economic factors.

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66 views

PBA As A Marketing Platform

The Philippines has a long history with basketball dating back to 1910 when the American colonial government first introduced the sport. It has become deeply ingrained in Philippine culture and society, transcending demographics. The Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) was formed 40 years ago and has become a major sports and entertainment institution. It is also considered one of the most powerful marketing platforms in the country, driving brand awareness as it draws large television audiences of over 50 million viewers. While the PBA provides major marketing benefits for corporations that sponsor teams, some argue this close brand integration may undermine the sentimental connection between teams and fans by reducing the relationship to one purely based on economic factors.

Uploaded by

Lili
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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One thing typically unites a nation. For some, it's culture.

For others,
religion. For others, sports. For the Philippines, it's basketball – a sport
that transcends age, gender, social class and generations

History of basketball in the Philippines


The American colonial government first introduced basketball in the
Philippines in 1910, making it part of the physical education curriculum
in schools. It was originally intended as an activity for girls, as baseball
and track and field were deemed too rough and intense. The nation is
one of the world’s first nations to play basketball, and the sport
debuted in the country only 19 years after it was invented in 1891.
Besides the United States, it’s hard to find another country that has
played the sport as seriously and for as long as the Philippines. It's
also home to the second oldest basketball associations in the world,
as well as Asia’s first professional basketball league.

PBA as a marketing platform


THE PHILIPPINE Basketball Association (PBA) has been in existence for 40 years now and has become an
institution in the realm of sports entertainment in the country. But apart from establishing itself as the
best basketball show in town, Asia’s first play-for-pay league has reared itself to become one of the
more powerful marketing platforms around.

“It’s an advertising vehicle first and foremost,” PBA Operations Director Rickie Santos
told BusinessWorld in an interview, wherein he discussed the intricacies of owning a PBA franchise.

‘HUGE PLATFORM’
“Yes it works,” said league observer Rick Olivares, when asked by BusinessWorld if the PBA is an
effective marketing platform.

“It creates brand awareness for all the subsidiary brands. It is a huge platform since the PBA is viewed
by a lot of people from all over the archipelago,” Mr. Olivares, who is also a PR practitioner, said.

And things are only bound to get better and bigger for the league, Mr. Santos said, considering how
the PBA is experiencing an upswing at various fronts; and that more and more companies are sending
feelers to be part of the league in varying forms.
According to a study released late last year by Kantar Media, a television audience measurement
provider, the 39th season of the PBA, which ran from November 2013 to July 2014, drew “72% of
Filipinos, or 53.4 million viewers,” making it a solid top-rater among sports programs in the country.

Kantar arrived at the numbers by culling data from its Kantar Media Urban-Rural Television Audience
Measurement service covering a nationwide panel size of 2,250 households.

The league also posted record gate receipts in various stretches of the season, particularly in the
finals.

Such development, Mr. Santos said, makes further league expansion moving forward highly likely.

It's a genius move for any advertiser. Filipinos are consumed with basketball and by watching
these teams the brands are constantly in their heads. The sheer cost of running a team are
made up by the returns in sales and reduction in advertising overhead. Don't take my word for it.
The marriage of basketball and advertising reduces the relationship between the teams and the fans to
one that is purely economic. Each corporation has converted the athletes into its paid wage labourers.
Each player becomes a salesman when he wears his branded jersey. Athletic ability is cultivated not for
its own sake but because winning games translates into sales. The need to be selling its constantly
expanding product lines causes each team to frequently change its name with the advent of a new
product to sell. With corporate teams there is no rooting for the home team or hometown pride for
having a winning team. Rather, the corporations have torn away from basketball its sentimental veil,
and have reduced the team-fan relation to a mere money relation.

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