A professional sporting league
with a strong international following and as massive in size as the NBA can
most assuredly generate immense amounts of merchandise for the global fandom to
get their hands on. Thus, opening a chain of retail stores offering officially
licensed NBA stuff was the natural course, and they have been at it since the
first NBA Store opened at NYC in 1998. The Philippines too had its own branches
of the NBA Store chain, at least until two years ago when they were shut down.
But the country is famed as one of the world’s most basketball-crazy, so the
league’s retailers cannot stay away for long.
Inquirer.net reports that the NBA Store, with its wide selection of
official NBA uniforms, clothing, accessories and gear, will finally return to
the Philippines, if only in a digital form. This was announced on Thursday,
July 23, with the league announced that a branch of their online store for the
country is being re-launched and should be ready for online orders from
Filipinos next month. To be precise, August 6 is the date when NBAstore.com.ph
will open its virtual doors. Its operations will be under local shoe retailer
Titanomachy International, or Titan, which has collaborated with Nike on shoe
design.
NBA Asia Associate VP for Global Merchandising
Lesley Rulloda spoke of the high affinity for the sport of Basketball in the
Philippines and among Filipinos. “We know Filipino fans want to celebrate their
fandom and express their support for their favorite teams and players so we
look forward to outfitting them with gear from all 30 NBA teams and deepening
their connection with the league,” Rulloda adds. Having an online NBA Store for
the country is a sensible approach as well, as the COVID-19 pandemic is still
ongoing and the opening of a physical store would make maintaining protocols
difficult.
NBAstore.com.ph is being regarded
as the retail chain’s 25th branded online store, and its re-launch
looks to reverse the gradual scarcity of official NBA league stuff since the
closure of the original Philippine store branches years ago. And with
e-commerce getting a leg up the world over because of the pandemic, the NBA is riding
on the support for online transactions. With local retailer Titan in charge of
the online store, it is thus able to offer exclusive product releases from
local providers, such as the NBA Philippines Tees collection.
These NBA Store online launches
are timed to happen mere days after the scheduled restart of the
COVID-interrupted NBA season, starting July 30 and ending no later than October
12.
Image courtesy of Philippine Star
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