Goodbye Purefoods..

The bad news hit the newsstand this morning. Purefoods Tender Juicy Giants, one of the most popular team in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) will not be returning to action as a team in the next season of the PBA. The team which I have followed and have been a disciple of since the day I learned to play basketball will be saying goodbye to its millions of fans here and around the world. The team that brought us legendary players like Jerry Codiñera, Jojo Lastimosa, Nelson Asaytono, Glen Capacio, Dindo Pumaren, Ronnie Magsanoc, Rey Evangelista, Alvin “The Captain” Patrimonio (one of the two players in the PBA history with 4 MVP Awards)to Kerby Raymundo, Paul Artadi and James Yap, has played its last game August 6, Friday against Talk n Text which they lost. What a way to end their 22-year illustrious history, winner of 12 PBA Titles, Abrupt and rude.


Purefoods Hormel Corporation has been under the umbrella of San Miguel Corporation since 2001. Prior to that year, Purefoods Corporation was part of the Ayala Group of Companies. Ayala bought the franchise of Tanduay in the PBA thus paved the way for the Purefoods Tender Juicy Giants Team to enter the PBA in 1988. The team has made several team name changes while in the league as part of their tactical marketing campaign to boost other Purefoods products. Among the them are Coney Island Ice Cream, Purefoods Oodles, Purefoods Corned Beef, Purefoods Carne Norte, Purefoods Chunkee Giants and the Purefoods Tender Juicy Giants team they have now.


Early this year, San Miguel Corporation announced that they are selling their Purefoods Entity. Among the interested buyers are the Gokongwei Group of Companies Universal Robina and Unilab Corporations. Today, it has been announced that Butch Campos' Del Monte Pacific Ltd. and Ricardo Po's Century Pacific Group of Companies won the bidding. And today, the new owners stressed that they are not interested in fielding a team in the PBA.


On the business side of things, the new owners of Purefoods Hormel Corporation have seen the current significant market share of Purefoods at 63% in the food industry, hotdog sales in particular. This share simply means that Purefood Hotdogs is lording it over the other players in the hotdog industry as they have to contend over the 37% remaining market share. The bidding cost which was not revealed to the public surely involves significant amount of cash and the new owner intends to recover them fast without the need to invest in a PBA franchise. A force-field business strategy of cutting down expense and putting more pressure on sales to recuperate ROI the least possible time.


The PBA will never be the same again without my favorite team on it. The players may be there but the concept of them playing in another uniform is something that we fans must learn to accept the soonest. Choosing players to play for a particular team is like a car choosing for it ultimate driver. As Bobby Bolivia of the Transformers Movie would say it; “A driver don't pick the cars. Mmm-mm. Cars pick the driver. It's a mystical bond between man and machine.” Same goes with a basketball team and their fans. There’s a mystical bond between teams, players and fans that goes beyond basketball games. That is something that we all, fans of Purefood Tender Juicy Giants, will have to search for as we begin a new chapter of PBA without a team.


2010 is becoming a strange year for me. I have lost and let go of things that are so important to me. And as if the irony isn’t over yet, here comes the news of Purefoods Tender Juicy Giants saying goodbye permanently. What’s next? Bring it on!