Reacting to the 2016-2017 PBA's plans and innovations

With a very ambitious and creative PBA board chairman in Mr. Mikee Romero, PBA has made some interesting moves to talk about. All of it was decided in the annual PBA planning session in Korea. 

So, here are our takes to their decisions

IMPORT HEIGHT LIMITS; COM. CUP = 6'10, GOV. CUP = 6'5
I have no problem with this. The height limits basically differs the two import-laden conferences and five inches difference is a good gap. What I love was their decision of not giving any height advantage to the expansion teams. This is a professional league and a franchise is always on a cycle. "Minsan nasa baba, minsan nasa taas."

THE PLAN TO REVIVE THE TOURNAMENT WITH SOME OF THE TOP ASIAN CLUBS
The plan is not complete yet but the important thing is, it could happen. One thing that I am hoping is for this tournament to replace the Governors' Cup. There is no point of having four tournaments when having three is already damaging. One more thing that they better make sure about this is the quality of the Asian Clubs that they will bring.

PBA WILL FOCUS MORE ON THEIR WEB PLATFORMS
This is the vision of Mr. Mikee Romero and it was received well by the board. Here was one of the statement of Mr. Romero, “Look at the NBA, the NFL and baseball’s Major League. They’re all heading to China which is a hundred million market. For us, I think we have to broaden our base by trying to reach our OFWs. People in busses, jeepneys and in LRT watch video livestream. We have to tap that venue.
 
Finally, someone pushed for this! From their PBA website up to their social media pages, PBA is well behind by time and by the other professional leagues. One thing that I really want to see is a stable of great analysts giving their takes and analysis on what is happening in the league and for it to be posted in the web.

A NEW ALL-STAR GAME FORMAT
Instead of a half week grind, the All-Star week will be literal because the activities will be week-long now. This is to make way on a new All-Star game format of pitting regional teams against each other. Pampanga, Cebu, Manila, Ilocos and Ilo-ilo are some of the regions that they planned to used as team base. 

I love this innovation. I am pretty sure the PBA fans will enjoy supporting a team that represents their region. And it will be a tournament so more games which means more entertainment. I hope this is a ray of hope that the day of the PBA teams settling for home-provinces will finally come true.