I used to always come early for the games, and there's ten thousand people there for our warm up. It's a love affair. It's a love affair with the NBA. It's ingrained. I think from the cradle. You know, there's religion, there's politics, and there's basketball. It got to the point where Fizz and my other assistant, Chad Camra, were signing kids foreheads. My legacy was forty two years ago, but these people act like it was yesterday. You had lunch
with him, yeah, but I wasn't able to eat. I was like, just like I had lunch, cat sat next to him. Hey, if we could be partial contributors to being dreammakers, I'm all four. Picture a place where basketball is everywhere, from the air you breathe, to soil beneath your feet, where people hoop anywhere and everywhere, from MBA ready arenas to the middle of streets to the slopes of active volcanoes, where the most common item in people's wardrobes is a jersey, and the soundtrack to everyday life
is a bouncing ball. This place, this hoops heaven, is the Philippines. Basketball where we're standing tallis when you travel through the country You're guaranteed to see people outside shooting, driving and defending on dirt and concrete courts, and they're playing either in bare feet or were just flip flops or channellas on their feet. But for real, the Philippines passion for basketball is off the charts. Don't take my
word for it, though. We asked Donna Reus, director of Content and Media Distribution at MBA Asia, to bring us the numbers. We'll hear from Donna later in the episode of the population in the Philippines consider themselves NBA fans. That's the largest person to JAMO in all countries, and two thirds of households in the Philippines watched MBA coverage last season. It's no surprise that basketball caught on in
the Philippines. Basketball is caught on almost everywhere but no other country, and people have embraced the game the way Filipinos have, where it's almost a national religion. Welcome to hoops Paradise, the Philippines Love of the game. Brought to you by iHeartRadio and the MBA pastable. What's up, everyone, I'm Cassidy Hubber. If you're a basketball fan, you may know me from the NBA sidelines, where I'm a reporter for ESPN and the host of the show Hoop Streams.
But what you might not know unless you're Filipino, in which case you almost definitely know, is that I'm Filipino American and that basketball is in my blood, not just because it's a national obsession in the country where my mother was born, but because I grew up playing around the world with my dad in the driveway of our home right outside of Chicago. My father's roots are Irish and German, but his love for the game would be
right at home in the Philippines. Even now, he just turns seventy, and he still has a regular pickup run. He spent a lifetime around American basketball, and so have I. I've only gotten the chance to go back to the Philippines with my mom twice. I've seen enough to know that basketball is a huge deal in the Philippines, but I don't know the country well enough to explain every aspect of its roundball infatuation, at least not like someone
who grew up there could. Luckily, though, I'm taking this journey with someone who did grow up in the Philippines, and he understands the country's basketball jones about as well as anyone on the planet. Nico, what a thanks, Cassidy.
I'm Nico Ramos, a sports broadcaster here in Manila, where I used to have a job almost exactly like yours during NBA games, only I was a reporter and then the commentator for a professional league which is called, in a very intentional nods for our American counterparts, the PBA or Philippine Basketball Association. I played for a very small, very bad college team, but I used to tell everybody I was the only one who was going to make
it to the PBA. I was right, kind of Nico, inside the lines or outside the lines, you made it. And in this podcast, we want to explore the Philippines passion for the sport. How did a nation on the other side of the world, from the YMCA Gymnasium in Springfield, Massachusetts, where doctor James Naismith first hung a pair of peach baskets and instructed his students to toss a leather ball into the hoops, come to a door basketball Like almost
no other country on the planet. It's not like the Philippines is an international powerhouse unless you're at least fifty years old. The country has sent a team to the Olympic Basketball Tournament in your lifetime. It also hasn't produced a single homegrown NBA player ever yet, And well, we might as well address the undersized elephant in the room. Filipinos usually aren't very tall. In fact, statistically speaking, we're
among the shortest people in the world. National surveys have repeatedly measured the average height of Filipino men at about five foot four. You know, we're still on average not at tall people. So we have to be kind of creative to be successful on the court. That's Donna as director of Content and Needia Distribution at NBA Asia. So I think that's kind of the hallmark of Filipino basketball is that we're pretty good at, like being creative. I
like this word a couple of words, I guess. Like there's gulang, which literally means age in the basketball sense. It sometimes can take on a negative connotation, but I think for me means using your smarts to make up for lack of like height or hef. But maybe a better word is discarte, which I think kind of translates to being strategic, but I guess it's the same thing right to use. You're smart, to outsmart somebody and just
kind of working around your physical disadvantages. Now, Cassidy, let me translate that for you, because Donna is though much more polite Filipino out of the three of us, All of that really adds up to a grabbing of the risks. Yeah, pulling on the jersey's, hugging on the opponent's shorts without the referee seeing scrap. All of that adds up to gulang And you know, it's it's kind of it's kind of this badge of honor that you kind of earn
when you're a young player. We all actually have these moments when we remember someone older telling us I'm a gulan ka, which means, oh, now you know how to play. Now you know how to play. I feel like I need to start using that a little bit more here in the States. And just like surprise people, I'm paper. None of this adds up to the profile of a country made up of one hundred million basketball junkies and
NBA addicts. Yet the two times I visited family in the Philippines with my mom, I've seen this sport everywhere around me, pickup games on every street corner, NBA stars passed in present, smiling down at me from a twelve story billboard, and live game broadcasts on TV from SunUp to sundown. When it comes to Filipino fans interest in
NBA basketball, the numbers are mind blowing. On social media, the league's Facebook page has more than eight million followers from the Philippines that ranks number two in the world, above every country but the States. Last season, viewers from the Philippines accounted for one third of the total hours watched on the NBA's YouTube channel. And for all those critics who say the Dunk contest has lost its charm,
don't bring that mess to Manila. Because Filipinos watched almost ten and a half million hours of MBA content last All Star weekend, about twenty percent of all worldwide consumption. Well, there's no stopping Filipinos from watching basketball, and watching a lot of it. As they say. If you know, you know.
When I worked as editor in chief of Slam Philippines and even now in my position as Senior brand director for Titan, I spend a lot of time in meetings with basketball and sneaker executives from other countries and Whenever I start sharing stats about Filipino basketball obsession, or when I tell them stories about teenagers practicing step back threes
and their flip flops, they can hardly believe what they're hearing. Basically, a big part of my job is to translate the country's national obsession to the international brands we work with, and to always be looking for ways to connect people through the sport. So does that mean you could tell me what's going on with the Senator who has his own signature shoe? I thought you'd never ask. But for the record, that wasn't us. Don't pin that on us.
Titan was not the mastermind behind Senator Bong Goes twenty eighteen three point King sneaker drop. That was a local apparel company called World Balance and the shoe a white and lime green low top with a mesh body. Yeah, it was a real thing. And yes, before you ask, the Senator Ken stroke it from way downtown. The sneaker was a limited release of only five hundred pairs and they were mostly you know, created to drum a publicity for Goes. Can I say it? But successful Senate campaign
that year? All in all, yes, there's no denying they were real. Local influencers even did unboxing videos on YouTube comparing the three point Kings quote unquote, vibe and fit to the Nike KD Elevins. You gotta be the shoes. And here I am still waiting for new balance to come out with the Obama. Yes, we can mids the intersection between basketball and politics in the Philippines. It's an amazing, an often ridiculous way to illustrate how deeply the sport
is ingrained in Filipinos lives. All right, Cassidy, Now it's my turn to ask the question. The times you did visit family here in the Philippines, what do you notice about basketball in the country. Well, regretfully, I've only been back twice. First time I was so little i can barely remember it. The second time I was in college. And Filipino Americans know how it goes when we come
home for a visit. Our families basically kidnap us from the moment we land in Manila till they return us to the airport a few hours before the return flight. So the entire trip we've been shuttle door to door from the family home to the mall, to the restaurant to the beach and then back. But I did spend a lot of time in traffic gazing at my surroundings from the backseat of my family car. And during those hours, even when I wasn't looking for it, I saw basketball everywhere.
There were vendors walking through the gridlock selling things you'd expect, like water bottles and air fresheners, but also items that seem completely useless in a traffic jam, like feather dusters, toilet plungers, and yes, fully inflated, bright orange rubber basketballs. Are people really working on their handles while waiting at red lights? I mean smart, like get that handlework in
when you can. But other times I'd look out the window and see Magic Johnson's painted portrait staring right back at me, along with Byron Scott, James Worthy, and the rest of the Showtime Lakers starting five from the side of one of those public transport cheapneys. But what really struck me were the basketball courts. Every corner had its own makeshift half court, and every town plaza had a full court, complete with concrete bleachers, an aluminum roof, and
an electronic scoreboard. A lot of them look like they had fiberglass backboards and breakaway rims. You know how jealous I would have been of public courts like these during the middle school heyday of my playing career. Yeah, that's what makes the Philippines basketball heaven in a lot of ways. No matter how you connect with a sport, you're going to find a court and more importantly, a level to play at. If you're elite, you're gonna gravitate towards the
elite guys. Now, if you're like me and you just want to sweat once or twice a week, there's that group for you too. If you're just hanging out or around your street and your flip flops, there's a half court there that you guys built on an electricity pole, and playing there means something to whether you live in a city or in the province, those courts are centers of community life. Sometimes it feels even stronger in the most rural areas, where the basketball court serves so many functions.
It's the open space where farmers lay down their rice crops out to dry. It's the banquet hall where the town holds beauty pageants and talent shows and six am zoomba classes. It's the evacuation center when it's hyphoon threatens people's homes, and it's the spot where local governments administer public health programs like vaccination campaigns, and yes, even summertime community circumctition events. Don't ask. It's all in the basketball court.
And I haven't even mentioned the basketball that's played there yet. Like I've been lucky enough to play basketball all around the world, I played terrible Division three college basketball here in the Philippines, and to this day, the best feeling I've ever had while playing the game wasn't when I shared the court with Kevin Durant or Blake Griffin or
sneaker launch runs. He drops something, Oh yeah, no, yeah, just should I double click on some details because that time I played with KD he was just talking trash at me because I airballed the jumper. He remembers me to this day as Manila No jumper. Yes, he still calls me that I'm bringing that up next time I see him at shoot around. And Blake Griffin once passed the ball to me and I shot at three and it went in and I told him to please tell
KDE and he said, that's really weird. So while I name drop the details, though, aren't something I'm really eager to share. As I was saying, it's not when playing with those guys that I felt the best. It was on the court. Right down the street from my house in Marquina City, there was this one special summer where our neighborhood, which consists of three streets, was split into four teams, and the only rule was brothers and dads can't play on the same team. We have to split
it off so that everyone makes friends with everybody. So in the finals, my dad was coaching his team and I was playing for mine. He was heckling me the entire game. So when I hit a big three pointer in the fourth quarter, that really pissed him off. To this day, that's my favorite basketball memory because seeing my dad not knowing if he was supposed to be proud of me or if he was supposed to be mad
because he was losing. It's priceless. Favorite basketball memory. Yeah, because me and my two brothers were talking smack to my dad everyone like, that's what you get for not betting on one of us. It's true, talk about tough love. My mom was there upset because everybody was late for dinner and that double that she had made was getting cold, and she didn't go there to watch. She just went there and crossed the street to tell the four of
us to go home. Incredible. To this day, and this is no exaggeration, I still have people from that neighborhood come up to me and say, I was there when you hit that shot and your dad got pissed off. Everybody in the country has a story like that. The game is tied to our most cherished memories, the unforgettable moments shared with our whole communities. And even if those moments didn't come in a basketball game, they for sure happened on a basketball court. Yeah, in Tenement, the one
important place. He's the basketball court. You know why. The camaraderie there, the family itself, it's built there. That was coach Eddie Barboena describing the similar connection his community has with their central basketball court. Only their court and their community is unlike any other in the Philippines. It's the only street court in the nation that Jordan Clarkson, Paul George, and Lebron James have made round ball pilgrimages too, a place so special that Lebron left a cement imprint of
his hand behind to mark his visit. That place is located into gig one of these seventeen cities that make up Metro Manila, and that famous blacktop court is named Tenement, after the housing structure that surrounds it. So I'm a trainer coach here they just may see how to help people. The Tenement was built on nineteen sixty two President just Oo. This building was condemned, but the japan Engineering c and test our building here. It lasts more than fifteen years.
They said that this place is not safe, but they're wrong. This place is so much love. Where we come back, it's time for a quick ta gala Clesson Cassidy. I don't mean to put you on the spot, but how's your tag? Um? Look, this is not like I still hold this against my mom or my Lola, who you know both were in the household. I was my whole entire life raising me um. But they didn't teach me
to galog. That's okay. I know a few words, and you I know a few phrases like I'm not cool or you know massa rop and uh yepital and you know I can. I can say a few things, but not as much as I want to and I still need to. You know, I still hold that against my mom. It's their fault. It's completely on that. But look, it's not a problem that the gout a lesson have got here for you. Isn't something you would have learned in college courses or Rosetta Stone. We're pretty much anywhere outside
of the Philippines among nineties era NBA fans. And I can't even blame this on your mom or your lola, because you had to be a basketball fan to really know this. Now, when I bring up the greatest pick and roll duos of the nineties era, who are the first two players who come to mind? Quick? Can't you watched your hometown Chicago Bulls beat them in the finals twice? Oh,
easy work? John Stockton and Karl Malone? Right? Perfect? And do you remember how the great and be on NBC announcer Marv Albert would call their plays together back then?
Stockton to Malone Bengo. Well, in Filipino, the version of expanded Tagalog that serves as the Philippines national language, the same exact sounds, that combination of phonetics they happen to form the sentence Stockton to Malone, which means Stockton jump and every time the mailman delivered on a Stockton assist in those years, it was like Marv and millions of Filipino NBA fans we're sharing an inside joke only we could understand. Oh wow, I feel the same kind of
if you know, you know, connection with Filipino fans. I mean, you know, while covering the NBA most of the time, will be at the big events that draw spectators from all over the world, like All Star Weekend, Summer League, or the NBA Finals, and I'll be walking down like an arena hallway or spot a few fans sitting together in this hands and we'll just make eye contact. And this is something you know that like I do just on a daily basis, I will make sure if I
think you're a Filipino, I will say something Filipino. Often I'm right, I'm like nine right, But specifically with NBA fans who come up to me during games or you know, at NBA events, I will absolutely say Filipino and then we would embrace and I would say Filipino, Filipino, Filipedo. And by the way, they don't point at you then giveaways that it's not a head nod. No, it's it's not a point. They kind of gesture their lips. Yes, because Filipino's talk with their face. Yeah, exactly over there,
well there. So when you see them talking to someone whoever is next to them and then making that like kissing mark gesture at you, it's only to say you see her, Cassidy. Yes, it's not creepy. Yeah, okay, creeped out. And a lot of the time they'll stop me and share a quick version of their own basketball love story and then tell me how much it means to see a fellow Filipino on screen during NBA games. I know
you hate it every time. I tell you how important that is to so many people here to see you represent us so well. I mean a lot of the time, the country's basketball passion shines brightest when our love for the game comes into contact with the oldest and best pro league in the world. So to have you there, it's incredibly, incredibly a proud moment, NonStop for all Filipinos everywhere.
We've also seen it up close when great players like Lebron or Kde come through Manila during their offseason sneaker tours. When Kevin Durant visited Manila, he was greeted by chanting fans everywhere he went. It's a dream to look at man in the sea and didn't have Enos players here with them. Man can't beat there. So you know, I'm sure you'll see a future NBA player walking around here at some point. I mean, a chance to see a Finals MVP in the flesh, maybe even get close enough
to ask for an autograph, for a selfie. It becomes almost like a religious experience, and the players feel it too. I mean, I remember any time Kobe Bryant would come to the Philippines on a sneaker tour, the country would stop, like everybody you knew would be at wherever it was. It was rumored that Kolby would be. It was raining, didn't matter, it was sun ten feet right over your head, did it matter. You were only going to see a glimpse of Kobe through the glass, didn't matter. There were
thousands of people there just waiting to see him. The
love definitely goes both ways, Nico. I remember back in two thousand and eight, after the Boston Celtics be Kobe and won their first championship since the Larry bird days, the team celebrated by going to a Manny Pacil fight in Las Vegas, and then all of a sudden, after Manny knocked out some poor guy named David Diaz, there was Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Rajon Rondo, Sam Cassell, and Tony Allen partying in Manny's locker room, and you
couldn't tell who was more starstruck to meet the other. I'm not sure Cage even knew, but before they went in there, Manny had been calling him his favorite player for years. Huge Man, huge Man. Just just what it is, Man, I'm a huge pac Man fans. While we're here, you know that this guy has never asked for the picture
for anyone except you. He is your number one, the Philippines greatest living champion at the time when he could almost literally do no wrong in the eyes of fellopen noise, engaging in some adorable cross cultural bromance with future NBA Hall of famers, with some of the best basketball players on the planet looking up to our national sporting hero. For Filipinos watching the scene unfold, it was like Manny
said a dream come true. Later on Manny's love for KG and the Celtics wound up playing a factor in one of the most controversial fights they June twenty twelve, lost to Timothy Bradley Junior that nobody watching the fight seemed to see Manny losing. Rumors swirled after the bout that Manny had angered the ringside judges by postponing his ring walk while he watched the Celtics play the Miami Heat in an Eastern Conference Finals game. I'm still I'm still sour about that loss. By the way, I still
demand a recount same. I remember being so mad. I think I was at a party that night watching on my phone and everyone was like, what is wrong with you?
Like this is just an atrocity. But I digress. Overall, the way that Manny always wore his love for basketball and the NBA on his sleeve, launching his two handed catapult of a jump shot in pickup games, his brief and confusing foray into owning Code Chain and playing for his own PBA team, starting his own regional pro league to provide opportunities for the surplus of Filipino basketball players
who aren't quite PBA caliber. It seems like another perfect example of how basketball touches just every Filipino in the world. In some way you see basketball in the NBA's influence on Manny's life. But really you see it wherever you look in the Philippines, and the closer you look, the more you see the sports imprint all around you. They're the painted portraits of NBA legends on the sides of jeepneys that you mentioned earlier, often with images of the
driver's wife and children. On the hood. There are the court size murals of Lebron and Kobe that the artists and activists of the Tenement community hand painted onto their home court. Coach Eddie Barbuena told us about the creation of the famous Kobe mural on the Tenement court, the mural of Kobe, Bryant and gig it's very tachi. When
that time happens, all the people gather all around the world. Actually, the idea of putting the mural here in the famous basketball for Tenement is the idea came from the Tenement Virtual Artists. We have our Tenement Virtual artist here and with cooperation and coordination with the Tahan and Association lead by our president Jennifer karpen So, the plan was so fast they do the mural for respect and love to the father and daughter Kobe and Gigi for three days.
They do it that for three days continuously, without a sleep. There are the times you'll catch a glimpse of a tanker truck passing by and realize as its speeds out of sight that it had a gigantic Michael Jordan Jumpman logo painted on the back. One of the most intimate examples of how deep the nation's love the NBA runs comes from the number of Filipino parents who choose to
give their children NBA inspired names. There's no way to tell exactly how many of the countries Kevin's or Allan's were named after Garnette or Durant or Iverson, but I promise you if we could interview each and every one of them, you wouldn't believe how many of them would say they're named after an NBA Grede. Basically, if a newborn boy in the Philippines isn't named after a saint, there's a good chance he'll be named after the next
holiest figure. An NBA legend. The sidestep moved by Scottie Thompson, Steve Nash Enriquez gets it to go because he did have a depressive rookie year. He has a right spots and now he's just looking to build on him. In case you can't quite believe your ears, I'll slow it down for you. That was Scotty Thompson, reigning MVP of the PB eight, whose dad named him Scottie after Scottie Pippin.
Then a couple of college players whose namesakes could not be any clearer, National University point guard Steve Nash Enriquez. By the way, Steve Nash and Riquez also have a massive ponytail, and he's like five foot eight on his best day, which makes him the best player to cover. I love him, man. I will say this. Though Irvin Magic Ramos was my leading candidates to name my son, my wife would have none of it. We eventually named him Tyler and depending on how Tyler Hero's career goes.
Oh is where al stand with the story Tyler Hero becomes an MVP one day, I'll say my son was named after him, and then you just got it. But you have to add Hero with the double R as the middle name. You know that, right, I don't mind it. Tyler Hero Ramos. I don't mind it into it. Actually, it's amazing. All right. I think that's our cue to take a quick break. But when we come back, we're traveling back to nineteen ninety eight. Jaw alone is coupled.
They shot out of it and stealing up Chicago seventeen seconds, seventeen seconds from Game seven Orcal Championship number six. Jordan open Chicago with the lane. Cassidy, you're from Chicago. I'm guessing you recognize that sound. Recognize nineteen ninety eight, Salt Lake City. You talk, Michael Jordan, the shot, get off me, Brian, even though people called you Byron, your name is Brian Russell Stockton. Why don't you tom alone yourself off this court?
MJ and the poll second three p. Twenty thousand, cry jazz fans. I don't just recognize that sound. I don't just appreciate that sound. I am that sound. I cherish that sound. All right, Okay, Chicna go easy easy. We all saw the push off, Yes, we all watched it. Do you remember where you watched MJ? Push off? Brian Russell, I didn't see any push off. I don't know what you're talking about, but I was in eighth grade around then the time of the shot and only the shot.
I was home in my living room watching from the couch, like we did every single Bowls playoff game back then, and my mom was screaming her absolute head off, like shrieking every time every time a shot went up, and I could hear her sometimes when I'd be taking the dog out a walk two blocks down, just screaming Scotty. She didn't even scream for Luke Longley, what are you doing, b J? I had Mom calmed down, You're gonna blood pressure, Mom,
blood pressure. But that was that was our household. I mean, to grow up in the nineties during that era of the NBA, I mean exactly why I am who I am and how I ended up where I ended up. I feel like you're describing my mother with that exact same tone and volume. Because the Philippines was thirteen hours ahead of Eastern Standard time during that part of the year, so for me, it was Monday morning and it would have been about maybe nine, almost ten years old. In
elementary school. I was at the sweet spot of just really beginning to understand basketball and blossoming as a fan. Because of Jordan and the Three Peats, everybody I knew had Bulls Merch and only Bulls Merch for some reason, like everyone had relatives in Chicago. Back then, it wasn't so easy to watch NBA games on TV. There weren't that many options for cable, and most of the games
that we did see were incredibly delayed. The stories folks tell about the NBA's dark ages in the seventies when finals games weren't aired on live TV and came on sometime in the middle of the night, after the news or after the late night talk shows. We were still living in that world at some point in the nineties. But those limitations forces to get creative, and I remember trying to follow note I say followed not watch that game six between Chicago and Utah, and it became one
of the great basketball experiences of my life. So at school, much like many many other schools in the Philippines, we had what were called recess runners. So during the school day, we had a recess period and one of the kids, the runner, he'd sprint up to the pay phone to call his cousin, his friend, or whoever it was they knew that was wealthy enough or lived far away from Manila enough sneak enough to have one of those bootlegs
satellites that provided a hazy feed of NBA games. The runner would call his guy, ask for the score, what was happening in the game, how many technicals did Dennis Rodman have? What color his hair is? All that stuff? And he'd come running one hundred meters back into the canteen and yell into the entire student lounge where everybody would be their waiting. That morning of game six, the runner came back. He kind of messed up the story
of that last play. It's like a classic literal game of telephone because he came back sweat all over him, right, he's gasping for breath, and he said Jordan pushed off. He hit the game winner. Jordan pushed Russell the bulls win. That may have been the last shot Michael Jordan will ever take in the NBA. What's Joan's left hand here as he gives Russell the push. Referee can't see that. That's the image we had in our minds, in our minds as ten year olds. Michael Jordan assaulted Bryan Russell,
just physically hurt him. Because the guy on the phone told a recess runner that Jordan pushed Russell, and it was our only way of knowing what happened in the moment. And it stayed like that in my mind for about a month and a half before someone finally lent a VHS recording of the game from the States. It was a copy of a copy of a copy. And then I saw that, yes, MJ initiated some contact on that famous play, but it was more like a love tap than the crazy shove that we had imagined in our mind.
It was physical assault. You're telling me this all started. All this talk about a push off started from a bad game of telephone at your school. That's how this push off on sense got started. Jay, I'm sorry, City of Chicago. I'm sorry it was all because of one guy. Have won their sixth NBA championship and it's their second three people. Looking back on it, though, I'm happy I lived through those days before streaming and cable made it
so easy to follow the NBA games. I'm proud that I came of age during a time when we would do literally anything to get a scrap of information about our favorite teams and players, cook up wild schemes just to hear game updates. Where there's a will, there's a way, And when it comes to the Filipinos craving for NBA basketball, there's an entire world's worth of willpower coming out of
this small island nation. We asked Donna as if there were any misconceptions about Pinoy basketball culture that she'd like to clear up. Maybe people just aren't aware. Maybe they've seen photos or videos of these like makeshift courts. You know, you know, all of that is absolutely true. You can literally find like a makeshift in every neighborhood. But it's just that it's not a passing hobby for a lot
of Filipino fans. It's actually what we're discovering and constantly astounded by this is that Filipino fans are actually quite sophisticated and knowledgeable about NBA basketball. So if you go up to somebody who's like playing barefoot or in flip blop, they actually know the nuances of the game, they know the players, they know the history quite well. So that might be a little bit surprising to people just how again sophisticated and knowledgeable Filipino fans are. So much has
changed over the last ten twenty years. I'm gonna kind of date myself here by talking about a little bit about this, but that's really kind of dictated by the growing demand for for NBA content. So I guess if you go back, like maybe the eighties or nineties, you really only watch games on a laid basis, you know,
trying to find ways to watch a game. There used to be these two American military basis just north of Manila, and they had access to the Far East Network, which is guests the Armed Forces Network in the US, So if you live close enough, you could pick up the signal and be able to watch like American television, including
NBA games. And now, of course NBA fans in the Philippines can file the league and watch basketball with every waking hour of their days thanks to International League Pass, domestic and international media coverage of the league, and cable channels that run live NBA games in the morning and replays at night. But they don't take that access for granted, Nope. Filipinos are now among the most engaged NBA fans in
the world, and the league has taken notice. But I think for the first real change really came about with you know, obviously the advent of satellite technology and cable TV. You know, it's more people you know, got PTV subscriptions. We went from getting just a few delayed games per week and now you have you know, live games daily. So twenty ten we even launched a twenty four to seven NBA channel, which we still have today and we air now about roughly eighteen games on TV per week.
The game is definitely evolved. A lot of it, I think is it just exposure, not just the NBA basketball, but like you know, international basketball, there's FIBA, you know, other professional leagues like the Year League that your Panby League on Australian NBA. So if you watch like a PBA or a UAP game now you'll see that influence
in their self play, you know. I think again the game has changed a little bit and we're now playing a little bit more above the rim, but like there's still a lot of play below the rim, so you can see a lot of that creativity and just trying to get to the basket and trying to make those shots. You should see the Donner s Ai cross. Nobody has
seen it at this point. I think we've done about all we can to illustrate just how widespread the Philippines basketball obsession is, and how the country's love of the game runs as deep as it can get. I imagine that fifty four thousand people watching a basketball game, I mean the regular US NBA arena. It's like, you know, twenty twenty five, twenty three, You know, this is fifty three thousand people. It's a love affair. It's a love affair with the NBA. One part still feels like it's missing.
Note we adore basketball, sure, but why what part of our history turned the Philippines into a nation of hoop heads rather than a country full of soccer or cricket or baseball fans. Listen to episode two of Hoops Paradise, The Philippines Love of the Game to find out. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.