Air21 renamed to Barako Bull

August 28, 2011
by Josef Ramos

THE Air21 Express will be known the Barako Bull Energy Boosters in the 37th Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) season.

Air21 Express franchise team owner Bert Lina bought the Barako Bull team in the PBA two months ago to have two active teams in the league just like the San Miguel Corporation and Manny V. Pangilinan. SMC has Petron Blaze, Ginebra and B-Meg while Pangilinan has Talk ‘N Text and Meralco.

After buying the Barako Bull franchise, Lina named his second PBA team the Shopinas.com Clickers, an e-commerce on-line company of the Lina Group of Companies. Lina’s daughter Sheila will be the team governor while Franz Pumaren is the head coach.

Air21 team governor Manny Alvarez informed the Express’ official website that Mr. Lina will also be a distributor of the Barako Bull Energy Drinks as part of their business deal as joint venture with George Chua.

Lina agreed to preserve the name Barako Bull and keep some of the staffs. Junel Baculi is the head coach while Bong Ramos' post will serve as an assistant on the bench and Raffy Casiao remains the team manager. Manny Alvarez stays as team governor of the team.

Based also on their agreement, there will be a decision-making committee composed of two representatives each from Chua and Lina.

This is the third time the Lina franchise changed brand in the PBA after FedEx became Air21 in 2005, and then transformed to Burger King in 2009. After few months, Burger King returned to Air21.

Players Reed Juntilla, Patrick Cabahug, Marcy Arellano and Lou Gatumbato have expiring contracts.

Players who have existing deals are Dorian Pena, Leo Najorda, Wynne Arboleda, Elmer Espiritu, Jondan Salvador and two-time Most Valuable Player Willie Miller, acquired last conference in a trade with Ginebra for Nino Canaleta.

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Bert Lina's success in sports, business incomparable