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Marcial to tell all in TOPS Usapang Sports

Willie Marcial
Marcial: Challenging year for PBA.

THE Tabloids Organization in Philippine Sports (TOPS) welcomes the new year with the country’s favorite sport — basketball — as the main topic in its “Usapang Sports on Air” via Zoom on Thursday, Jan. 7.

No less than Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Commissioner Willie Marcial will be the special guest in the 10:30 a.m. public service program organized by TOPS and sponsored by the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC), Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) and Games and Amusements Board (GAB).

Marcial is expected to talk about the plans of the PBA for its 46th season, including the proposal to hold a new bubble in Manila in time for the planned April 9 opening.

April 9 is a historic date in the PBA as Asia’s first play–for-pay league formally started with its very first game featuring Mariwasa versus Concepcion Carrier on April 9, 1975.

Marcial is also expected to discuss the highly-successful PBA Season 45 bubble held in Clark, Pampanga, which drew favorable rating from both the IATF-EID (Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases) and GAB.

The PBA Philippine Cup, which was topped by Barangay Ginebra, was a huge success that it became a model for other professional sports in their own restarts.

Other topics to be discussed in the weekly session shown on Facebook live and YouTube are the PBA support to the Gilas Pilipinas campaign in the FIBA Asia tournament in February and the PBA Rookie Draft in March.

This is the first time that Marcial will be gracing the weekly session.

TOPS president Ed Andaya of People’s Tonight is inviting all officers and members, and friends in the sports community, to join the weekly session.

TOPS is composed of editors, columnists, reporters and photographers of the country’s leading national tabloids and blogger-friends from different social media groups.

Veteran sportscaster Ernest Leo Hernandez and shoutcaster Phaister are the TOPS moderators.