Thoughts on the Warriors Victory Parade

I AM now watching the replay of the championship parade of the Golden State Warriors after they won their third NBA title in the last four years.

All the major networks locally and nationally like ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, NBC Sports Bay Area, KRON, NBA TV and ESPN covered the parade.

Actually, here in the US, professional sports teams are named after cities and states which is why when a team wins a national sports title in the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB, that's when the champion team holds a parade with all the people celebrating with their sports heroes.

With this in mind, I wonder whether a parade could happen in the Philippine sports scene. I remember when the old MBA league was in existence, there were motorcades featuring the champion teams from Pampanga, Manila, San Juan, Batangas and Negros but due to lack of videos and photos, no Filipino sports fan has ever seen or heard of such a motorcade.

In the PBA, the closest thing to a victory parade is when Barangay Ginebra celebrates a PBA championship but instead of a parade, it's usually a Fans Day and get-together in a small venue like the Filoil Flying V Centre in San Juan or Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig. That's because PBA teams represent companies, not cities or provinces.

I remember when Gilas Pilipinas won second place in the 2013 FIBA Asia Championships and earned a ticket to the FIBA World Cup in Spain, there was supposed to be a Warriors-like victory parade in Metro Manila but this didn't push through because of rains.

In the last conference of the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League, the winning team from Batangas had a victory parade but it was somewhat low-key because the MPBL is just a new league that is starting to gain some media exposure.

The PBA is the only professional sports league in the Philippines today and unless it adapts to the times and becomes regional, then Filipino sports fans won't be able to experience a parade similar to what NBA teams like the Warriors do. All it takes is for Commissioner Willie Marcial and the board of governors to shed their old school thinking. The question is whether the PBA has the budget for a home-and-away format after more than 40 years of being commercial.