College basketball governance in the Philippines: actors, stakeholders, issues, and challenges

Collegiate basketball is one of the most popular and most watched forms of amateur sport in the Philippines. Like any sport, collegiate basketball is governed by actors and stakeholders and characterized by issues and challenges. Employing a policy-capacity and synthesis integrative review approach, this article identifies the actors, stakeholders and institutions of the Philippines two leading college basketball leagues, namely, the Universities Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and analyses the critical issues that confront these leagues in the context of college basketball governance. Issues include an overly powerful board of directors in relation to league commissioners, a lack of accountability mechanisms, alleged piracy of coaches and players, recruitment of players and coaches, the two-year residency rule, and parity in media coverage. Accordingly, the article assesses necessary on-going policy capacities and reforms which college basketball leagues undertake to achieve sound governance.