Behind Pacman Cup
Bleacher Talk
December 16, 2007
Behind Pacman Cup
If you’re a regular follower of the sports pages of any of the local dailies, you might have come across stories about the MP Cup Invitational Basketball Tournament that ended last week. Team Pacman won the championship over USC-M. Lhuillier last Sunday to cap the two-month tournament that was originally set up as a Manny Pacquiao’s way of saying “thanks” to his friends in basketball.
You might have noticed that we in Bleacher Talk didn’t write about it (until now), but that was for a particular reason: delicadeza. I guess you can say that now it can be told. Bleacher Talk was asked to serve as the tournament director of the MP Cup by the Pacman’s close friend, Barangay Captain George Rama, through TF sports editor Manny Villaruel. Since we were about to end the CESAFI basketball tournament where we served as a Deputy Commissioner, we felt that this would be a piece of cake. But it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
I write about this as I salute all the unsung heroes who take the cudgels to organize sports events and tournaments and make everything look so easy. In a chat with friends and participants of the MP Cup, they told us that everything went smoothly and that they didn’t notice any major problems other than the usual complaints on officiating and the tight schedule. Hearing something like this is already music to the ears of an event organizer. It’s the only thing we want in a tournament. The number one thing that we as event organizers look for in a tournament is that everything starts and ends smoothly. The last thing that we want are hassles, problems and sleepless nights. But in order to avoid all the stress, we have to make sure that the foundation of the tournament is stable and realistic.
The task. It all started when Pacquiao said that he wanted to have a tournament after having played in a five-game series against us at the Cebu Sports Media Association (CSMA). He had so much fun in this series that he wanted to duplicate this in a tournament. And so we then proposed to organize everything and launch the league in January 2008 so all the necessary preparations can be done. But Pacquiao wasn’t thinking about 2008. He wanted the tournament to start right after his fight with Barrera on October 7! And start we did on October 14, exactly a week after his fight in Vegas and two days after his arrival from LA. This meant that we had two weeks to prepare for the tournament that involved 18 club-based teams from Metro Cebu. And so after two technical meetings with team captains on October 3 and 10, we were all set.
The key to being able to start on “short notice” was that we knew practically all 18 teams and trusted them not to give us the usual pre-tournament problems involving eligibility issues. We laid the simple ground rule that the tournament was designed to level the competition to be at par with Pacquiao’s level of play, and this meant that only players 30 years old and above could join. Nobody with commercial or college varsity experience could play. Thus, the league was to be only for the regular weekend warriors who play basketball for fun.
Tapping venues and working the schedule for a total of 76 games was another major task since most of the major gyms are fully booked. We also had to end by mid-December, knowing that we’ll most likely lose many teams’ attention if we went deep into the Christmas season. Through our network, we managed to squeeze in a Fri-Sat-Sun schedule that included five games played on Saturdays and Sundays. Nothing less than the best was prepared for the Pacman. My top choice for venues is always the USC Main Gym, followed by the Capitol Parish Gym and City Sports Club Cebu.
Laying the foundation for all also meant ensuring that communication was never sacrificed. Thanks to technology, texting and e-mail were the primary tools to relay schedules, announcements and advisories. Every team was asked to have a designated contact person, cell phone # and email address. This corner even went with SunCel to be assured of unlimited texting and calls to those with SunCel phones (free plug here!). The last thing that we wanted to hear from the teams is that they never knew, saw or heard about the schedule or official league announcements.
Enforcement of the ground rules also proved to be a ticklish issue. While everything went smoothly at the start, things went a little bit rough as we approached the end of the elimination round when some questions were raised. But standing ground and sticking to the rules on which all teams agreed was the name of the game. We didn’t want to be tagged as tournament organizer who was willing to bend the rules midway through a tournament. We’ll stick to these rules from start to finish.
Officiating will always be a concern, but over-all, I thought we did a good job. This is where Commissioner Danny Duran and the CESAFI pool of referees stood pat on their calls, weathered the complaints and simply called it the way they saw it. It wasn’t perfect, but was certainly above par. The one thing that some teams “didn’t like” was our punctuality. We started ALL our games on time, and some even started earlier than the time indicated in the schedule. All I could say was that this is the way it should be done.
Running a tournament of this magnitude isn’t a joke on the financial side, especially when you talk about 76 games worth of officiating and venues, plus prizes worth P100,000. Now it can be told? The registration fee of P5,000 per team wasn’t even enough to take care of any one budget item, except maybe the uniforms of the referees and the prizes combined. Pacman’s sponsorship was valuable but it took some constant following up to bring the resources forward. This could be an entire chapter on tournament/events management.
As we look back at the first meeting with George Rama, Manny Villaruel and Alan Choachuy, we can humbly say that we’re more than satisfied with how the tournament went. There were fewer sleepless nights this time and no major storms that threatened the running of the tournament.
To think is to create. We said we wanted a smooth tournament; and we worked our asses off to get it. Smooth.
***
Time-out: You can reach me at bleachertalk@yahoo.com or 0923-342-8193 (SunCel).
December 16, 2007
Behind Pacman Cup
If you’re a regular follower of the sports pages of any of the local dailies, you might have come across stories about the MP Cup Invitational Basketball Tournament that ended last week. Team Pacman won the championship over USC-M. Lhuillier last Sunday to cap the two-month tournament that was originally set up as a Manny Pacquiao’s way of saying “thanks” to his friends in basketball.
You might have noticed that we in Bleacher Talk didn’t write about it (until now), but that was for a particular reason: delicadeza. I guess you can say that now it can be told. Bleacher Talk was asked to serve as the tournament director of the MP Cup by the Pacman’s close friend, Barangay Captain George Rama, through TF sports editor Manny Villaruel. Since we were about to end the CESAFI basketball tournament where we served as a Deputy Commissioner, we felt that this would be a piece of cake. But it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
I write about this as I salute all the unsung heroes who take the cudgels to organize sports events and tournaments and make everything look so easy. In a chat with friends and participants of the MP Cup, they told us that everything went smoothly and that they didn’t notice any major problems other than the usual complaints on officiating and the tight schedule. Hearing something like this is already music to the ears of an event organizer. It’s the only thing we want in a tournament. The number one thing that we as event organizers look for in a tournament is that everything starts and ends smoothly. The last thing that we want are hassles, problems and sleepless nights. But in order to avoid all the stress, we have to make sure that the foundation of the tournament is stable and realistic.
The task. It all started when Pacquiao said that he wanted to have a tournament after having played in a five-game series against us at the Cebu Sports Media Association (CSMA). He had so much fun in this series that he wanted to duplicate this in a tournament. And so we then proposed to organize everything and launch the league in January 2008 so all the necessary preparations can be done. But Pacquiao wasn’t thinking about 2008. He wanted the tournament to start right after his fight with Barrera on October 7! And start we did on October 14, exactly a week after his fight in Vegas and two days after his arrival from LA. This meant that we had two weeks to prepare for the tournament that involved 18 club-based teams from Metro Cebu. And so after two technical meetings with team captains on October 3 and 10, we were all set.
The key to being able to start on “short notice” was that we knew practically all 18 teams and trusted them not to give us the usual pre-tournament problems involving eligibility issues. We laid the simple ground rule that the tournament was designed to level the competition to be at par with Pacquiao’s level of play, and this meant that only players 30 years old and above could join. Nobody with commercial or college varsity experience could play. Thus, the league was to be only for the regular weekend warriors who play basketball for fun.
Tapping venues and working the schedule for a total of 76 games was another major task since most of the major gyms are fully booked. We also had to end by mid-December, knowing that we’ll most likely lose many teams’ attention if we went deep into the Christmas season. Through our network, we managed to squeeze in a Fri-Sat-Sun schedule that included five games played on Saturdays and Sundays. Nothing less than the best was prepared for the Pacman. My top choice for venues is always the USC Main Gym, followed by the Capitol Parish Gym and City Sports Club Cebu.
Laying the foundation for all also meant ensuring that communication was never sacrificed. Thanks to technology, texting and e-mail were the primary tools to relay schedules, announcements and advisories. Every team was asked to have a designated contact person, cell phone # and email address. This corner even went with SunCel to be assured of unlimited texting and calls to those with SunCel phones (free plug here!). The last thing that we wanted to hear from the teams is that they never knew, saw or heard about the schedule or official league announcements.
Enforcement of the ground rules also proved to be a ticklish issue. While everything went smoothly at the start, things went a little bit rough as we approached the end of the elimination round when some questions were raised. But standing ground and sticking to the rules on which all teams agreed was the name of the game. We didn’t want to be tagged as tournament organizer who was willing to bend the rules midway through a tournament. We’ll stick to these rules from start to finish.
Officiating will always be a concern, but over-all, I thought we did a good job. This is where Commissioner Danny Duran and the CESAFI pool of referees stood pat on their calls, weathered the complaints and simply called it the way they saw it. It wasn’t perfect, but was certainly above par. The one thing that some teams “didn’t like” was our punctuality. We started ALL our games on time, and some even started earlier than the time indicated in the schedule. All I could say was that this is the way it should be done.
Running a tournament of this magnitude isn’t a joke on the financial side, especially when you talk about 76 games worth of officiating and venues, plus prizes worth P100,000. Now it can be told? The registration fee of P5,000 per team wasn’t even enough to take care of any one budget item, except maybe the uniforms of the referees and the prizes combined. Pacman’s sponsorship was valuable but it took some constant following up to bring the resources forward. This could be an entire chapter on tournament/events management.
As we look back at the first meeting with George Rama, Manny Villaruel and Alan Choachuy, we can humbly say that we’re more than satisfied with how the tournament went. There were fewer sleepless nights this time and no major storms that threatened the running of the tournament.
To think is to create. We said we wanted a smooth tournament; and we worked our asses off to get it. Smooth.
***
Time-out: You can reach me at bleachertalk@yahoo.com or 0923-342-8193 (SunCel).
Comments