THE Golden State Warriors won yesterday the Western Conference finals of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Meaning that they will meet for the fourth time in four years the Lebron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers. In the previous three meetings, the Warriors won two titles and the Cavs one. In a basketball-loving country like ours, people are already familiar with that narrative.
It is in times like this when a tournament played in a foreign country buries in popularity our very own. The NBA-copycat, Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), and even the saga of Gilas Pilipinas, the country’s basketball team, get forgotten. Many basketball fans could easily identify NBA stars but find difficulty naming PBA stars and Gilas players.
The NBA wasn’t as popular in our shores in the past for a number of reasons, allowing the PBA and its predecessor, the Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association (MICAA), to grab the Pinoy’s imagination. So we knew more then about teams like Crispa and Toyota and players like Robert Jaworski, Ramon Fernandez, etc. than about NBA teams like the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers and players like Larry Bird and Earvin Johnson.
This was because reports about the NBA games could only be had via newspapers and radio and a little bit on television--and those were not enjoyable experiences. That began to change with the entry of cable and satellite television. Soon, NBA games were seen live, though in a limited degree, and the showing of NBA championship games became features in some restobars.
But globalization happened, and with it technological advance. This, plus the conscious effort by the NBA to market its product worldwide, placed the country on the grip of an NBA-mania of sorts. The country that invented the basketball game finally reached out to the country that made basketball a national pastime. With it came the realization that ours is the inferior product and that there is nothing like the original.
As technology continued to advance, so too the blurring of boundaries. To cable TV was added the Internet and the watching of NBA games further democratized. With the growth of interest in the NBA, local traditional media outlets were forced to cover NBA games, with the Philippine media giant ABS-CBN taking the lead, airing NBA games, especially the more important ones like the Eastern and Western Conference Finals, either on its main station or on its sister stations.
The NBA is not only a tournament, it is Big Business. It not only earns from the worldwide marketing of its games but its stars are also paid millions of dollars in endorsements even as its merchandise, like uniforms, caps, etc. are lapped up by its global fandom. The NBA must have profited much from us Pinoys because the country has become part of its global outreach program.
If you want to know the effect of us opening up to global Big Business sans the protection currently guaranteed by the 1987 Constitution, just look at the NBA and how it has run roughshod over the local commercial basketball league. While we are entertained, we lose sight of what underpins it: the profit motive.