WANTED: ‘Real’ Phl Team

They say that volleyball is the new basketball.

Well, that’s true. In fact, the recent stagings of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) and the Premier Volleyball League (PVL) have rocked the largest competition venues in Metro Manila — the Smart Araneta Coliseum and the Mall of Asia Arena — to their very foundations with thousands of screaming fans.

In Game 1 of the PVL All-Filipino Conference best-of-three finals series between Creamline and Choco Mucho, a total of 17,457 fans cheered their lungs out at Smart Araneta.

The number swelled to 23,162 when the Cool Smashers completed their mastery of the Flying Titans in Game 2 of the series.

Meanwhile, the Big Dome hosted 20,955 fans in Game 1 of the UAAP Season 86 best-of-three finals series between National University (NU) and University of Santo Tomas (UST).

A few days later, a total of 22,515 fans attended Game 2 at the Mall of Asia Arena where the Lady Bulldogs formally tamed the Tigresses to secure their second title in three years.

In all, both leagues recorded a total of 84,089 paying spectators in just one week, something that seemed unthinkable when the UAAP was still being played in the old, dark and hot College of Human Kinetics on the UP Diliman campus, and the PVL, then known as Shakey’s V-League, was being held at the small Lyceum of the Philippines University gymnasium in Intramuros.

On the contrary, the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) is obviously struggling.

In the ongoing Philippine Cup, the dismal attendance had gotten very obvious that it forced the league to play in a smaller venue — the 6,000-seat Ninoy Aquino Stadium — just to get by while the hurricane that is women’s volleyball is sweeping the landscape of Philippine sports.

Although the PBA all-Filipino conference is already in the semifinals, there’s hardly a tinge of excitement, something that sideliners blame on various reasons like the rise of sister teams, lopsided trades, the absence of homegrown stars, traffic, and even sports fans’ change of lifestyle due to the emergence of social media.

Yes, volleyball has out-dueled basketball in terms of popularity and it will stay this way in the years to come.

But volleyball officials should not be complacent. The glitz and glamor of women’s volleyball will be worthless if they can’t convert ticket sales to actual victories in the international arena.

Next week will be the moment of truth as the country hosts the AVC Challenge Cup at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum.

The brightest volleyball stars were drafted — from veterans Jia de Guzman and Sisi Rondina to former UAAP Most Valuable Player Angel Canino of De La Salle University. Their coach will be Brazilian Jorge Edson Souza de Brito, an Olympic gold medalist who is determined to make an impact before leaving the country next month.

But the national team — christened by the Philippine National Volleyball Federation (PNVF) as Alas Pilipinas — has very little preparation. And with the PVL and UAAP wrapping up their respective conferences only last week, the majority of the players will only be available for just a few days of practice, making it impossible for de Brito to whip them into a solid unit capable of breezing past Chinese Taipei, India, Iran and Australia in the preliminaries.

Federation officials have to understand that volleyball has already gotten bigger. The UAAP and the PVL have developed into massive money-making machines that rake in millions in revenue, not just in ticket sales but in advertising and broadcast rights.

The popularity of the UAAP and the PVL only means that Filipinos have what it takes to become world-class volleyball players. But the question is how?

The challenge is now on the PNVF.

PNVF officials have to convert the talent, the popularity of these Filipina volleyball players into actual victories in the international arena. We don’t need hardcourt heartthrobs, what we need are heroes who will represent us and win in the international arena.

In short, we need a “real” national team.

Should PNVF officials fail in this mission, women’s volleyball will forever be a mere spectacle — not a source of pride and joy for sports-loving Filipinos.