It makes plenty of sense.
In the last 33 conferences in the PBA, the now-defunct Alaska Aces and the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters won a combined three titles. The rest of the championships were either won by a team under the San Miguel Corporation (SMC) banner or a squad with the Manny V. Pangilinan (MVP) group.
Consequently, calls for parity in the league have grown louder, not only from critics but also from well-intentioned fans.
Many believe that the imbalanced trades and the seemingly limitless capacity of marquee teams to sign multiple superstars have contributed to the problem.
According to veteran sports analyst Quinito Henson, revising the PBA's salary cap rules might just be the solution.
“We want to have a good distribution of talent, a good distribution of wealth sa PBA. I believe there has to be a serious review of the salary cap situation,” The Dean said on One PH’s Power & Play last Saturday.
“We do have a salary cap of P420,000 a month, but we also know that many players are getting more than that in various forms. There are endorsements and other things. I think the system now favors those teams that are super rich,” he added.
Going into specifics, Henson introduced the idea of including a luxury tax in the league’s salary cap provisions to get the wealthy teams’ spending under control and at the same time, offer a lifeline to the squads that are not as affluent.
“I think there has to be a total review if you introduce a luxury tax. In other words, if they (PBA teams) want their salary to go above the salary cap, okay lang pero magbayad sila sa liga,” Henson explained. “’Yung luxury tax na babayaran nila will go to the league, as well as distributed to the other teams.”
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The Dean appeared to firmly believe in his stance. In fact, he said he already brought up the idea to the PBA Board of Governors during their last planning session.
“Not on a formal basis because hindi naman tayo kasali sa board, but I mentioned it to several governors and they said, it is something that should be considered (but) maybe the time is not yet right for this,” he revealed.
“But I think it’s something that will be considered because expansion is around the corner,” he added.
(PM)