MBA: A game changer in PH basketball
MANILA — On this month 20 years ago, a league that shook up the Philippine basketball scene was born.
From the heart of Lingayen came the Metropolitan Basketball Association or simply known as the MBA and MetroBall.
While the league introduced interesting modifications to some of professional basketball rules, it was the main purpose of the league that stood out: home-and-away basketball.
Twelve teams from 11 provinces answered the call to become the charter franchises of the MBA, with each team taking turns in hosting the games.
Four expansion clubs were formed as the league rolled along.
‘The Passion of the Nation’
On March 7, 1998, many fans converged at the Narciso Ramos Sports Complex in Pangasinan’s capital to formally launch the MBA.
No less than former President Fidel Ramos, a native of Pangasinan (Pangasinan’s 1998 season moniker Presidents was an ode to Ramos), graced the event and even declared the start of the season.
Interestingly, the inauguration of the MBA came a day before PBA legend Robert Jaworski’s 52nd birthday, and in what seemed like an answer to the opening of the MBA, the commissioner at that time is current PSC commissioner and Jaworski’s bosom buddy Mon Fernandez.
Vintage Sports, the broadcaster of the PBA during those days, put up a special birthday bash for Jaworski on the same night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City.
Vintage had to brave two road blocks — mother station IBC’s deal with ABS-CBN, the MBA’s chief TV partner, to have a simulcast of the MBA opening, and a conflict with COMELEC considering Jaworski’s senatorial bid that time — for the event to push through.
The MBA’s inaugural season ran until right on Halloween, when Pampanga completed the spooking of Negros to capture what would be its one and only MBA title.
It was also Aric Del Rosario’s one and only professional basketball pennant as head coach and fifth in the last six years if you take into consideration UST’s fabled four-peat.
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via Philippine News Agency / Ivan Stewart Saldajeno
