How Much Do PBA Stars Really Get? (Sports Weekly, 1978)

Sports Weekly Magazine

September 22-29, 1978

 

 

 

(Editor’s Note: With this article Sports Weekly magazine starts a series on an oft-repeated question among fans of local bigtime basketball: how much do the players of the different teams in the PBA really get? Featured this week are the members of the Crispa Redmanizers ballclub, the defending champion team in the ongoing PBA second conference.)

 

            Because they ride around in flashy cars, go to discos at the drop of John Travolta’s name and dress as if they are part owners of men’s boutiques, the Crispa Redmanizers almost always strike people as a bunch of ballplayers who have struck oil or have got the Shah of Iran for a godfather.

 

            Gushed a fan marveling at Bogs Adornado’s sleek Mustang: “Gee, Bogs must really be getting a lot from Danny Floro.”

 

            Another, noting Atoy Co’s imported T-shirts, wondered out loud how much the Crispa hotshot is getting now to be able to afford such highly-durable shirts. “I bet,” he told a friend, “Atoy is getting no less than Php 10,000 a month.”

 

            It probably will surprise this fan that according to official records in the Games and Amusements Board, Atoy Co and Bogs Adornado do not even get Php 5,000 a month and that they are not the highest paid players of the Crispa ballclub.

 

            As per the figures on PBA player salaries gathered by SWM from official public records in the GAB< the monthly salaries of Co and Adorando, the team’s most popular players, are only Php 2,000.

 

            That’s right, Virginia, only Php 2,000.

 

            Aside from the two, other Crispa players in the Php 2,000 a month bracket are Philip Cezar, Rey Franco, Abet Guidaben, Jaime Javier, Rey Pages, Rudy Soriano, Willie Tanduyan and Tito Varela.

 

            Listed as receiving salaries of Php 1,500 a month are Armando Torres, Freddie Hubalde, Bernie Fabiosa and Virgilio (Bong) Dela Cruz.

 

            As for the Crispa player with the lowest pay scale – Php 1,000 a month – this turned out to be the inactive and reportedly the soon-to-be-sold Cristino Calilan.

 

            And who’s the Redmanizer with the highest pay? According to the Crispa record submitted to the GAB, this is guard Gregorio (Joy) Dionisio, whose salary is Php 2,475 a month.

 

            Viewing the Crispa payroll in the light of today’s soaring price scales of players, it would seem as if the Redmanizers are underpaid. But then, one studies when the contracts of the team’s well-known players began and one finds out that almost all of them began receiving their Php 2,000 pay rate four years ago.

 

            In the cases of Adornado, Co, Dela Cruz, Fabiosa, Franco, Guidaben, Hubalde, pages, Soriano, Torres and Varela, the GAB records showed that their present salaries date back four years ago – from April, 1975, the time when they signed up with Crispa. The four-year contracts expire on May 1, 1979.

 

            Dionisio’s contract won’t run out until May 1, 1980, but like the rest, it also started four years ago – on April, 1975.

 

            As for Calilan, his contract started April, 1977 and will expire on May 1, 1979.

 

            Crispa’s rookie Tanduyan’s two-year contract started May 1, 1978 and won’t expire until January 1, 1980. It’s the same thing with Varela’s four-year contract, which according to the records, won’t expire until April 1, 1980.

 

            The Crispa player with the shortest contract is Jaime Javier, whose one-year stint started February 1, 1978 and is good up to February 1, 1979.

 

            Crispa players whose contracts will be expiring before the start of next year’s first conference are Adornado, Calilan, Cezar, Co, Dela Cruz, Fabiosa, Guidaben, Hubalde, Javier, Soriano and Pages.

 

            The figures listed down in the GAB record on the salaries of the Crispa players were based on the contracts supplied to the board by the PBA. While perhaps many fans may find it unbelievable that the team’s big stars, notably Co, Adornado, Cezar, Hubalde, Soriano, Guidaben and Fabiosa, have not gotten salaries near the Php 8,000 a month deal which Manny Paner wangled from CFC, the fact remains that although incredible, the GAB figures are.       

 

 

Crispa's Comeback: Dalupan Tells How He Pulled It Off (Sports World, 1973)

Sports World Magazine

May 12, 1973

 

 

            For a winner, Virgilio (Baby) Dalupan sounded unsatisfied. “Credit it to determination and the fighting spirit of my boys,” he said of Crispa-Flor’s victory in the National Invitational. But, he said, for Crispa-Floro to stay up there, “we’ll have to tighten up on plays, sharpen combinations and maximize teamwork…”

 

            As of now, Baby thinks Willie Adornado as the team’s best shot does not get enough support from his teammates. Adornado’s baskets are fashioned out “mostly on his own,” says Baby, with minimum of screen or feed.

 

            Rudy Soriano “still commits too many errors,” which Baby believes could be minimized “with a little more careful playing…”

 

            His ball carriers, Atoy Co and Rey Franco, “still have to develop the knack of maintaining balanced play…” By this, Baby meant a ball carrier’s role of setting up an offensive play at the same time being ever primed to defend in the event of a turnover.

 

            “Both boys hang on to the ball too long, wasting precious time dribbling. Franco many times commits himself irrevocably so that a block or a rebound play finds him way away from his position….”

            Co, who Dalupan concedes, is a better than average shot, tends to be individualistic especially when miffed. There had been cases when Co would haul in the rebound, dribble all the way and score. “It’s spectacular basketball,” Baby says, “but not good basketball…”

 

            Danny Pecache came in for a share of tsk-tsks. “Maybe it’s because of the added responsibility of being team captain,” Baby said, “but Pecache now plays a little more tense, a little more uncertainly…”

 

 

 

            Does this mean he would institute changes in the lineup come the next MICAA series?

 

            “Of course not,” Baby said. “I just wanted to show that our team won with such shortcomings, and that determination and fighting spirit, everything else equal constitute 90 percent of winning a game.”

 

            “My team has the talent, height, scoring sock, youth, dedication, just about every attribute essential for the molding of a superior team.”

 

            “If Adornado gets his assists, Co and Franco learn to dribble less and pass more, Soriano cuts down on errors, Pecache steadies, I’d even say Crispa-Floro would be the team to beat in the next MICAA.”

 

            “For these boys are my mainstays, make no mistake about it, they are, for all their lapses, the people I rely on.

 

            “By the next MICAA, I have the feeling these boys, who know their basketball from A to Z and more important, know how to adjust, will be a much more potent outfit than the one that clinched the National Invitational, what with Ed Carvajal and the Cezar brothers, Chito Afable and Rey Pages by then weaved effectively into the team’s play and patterns.”

 

            “I repeat, credit the National Invitational win to determination and fighting spirit…but I’m looking forward to Crispa glory of 1969-72 being duplicated by my mixture of oldtimers and newcomers…Danny (Floro, team owner and manager) and I are agreed we already have the material on hand, and that this team might even be better than the record of the Crispa team then. One thing I know, this team is going to try awfully hard to up that 90 percent gauge to 100…”