The Philippine Basketball Association on Thursday afternoon departed from an old practice and took expansion to heart, accepting three new teams for next season to have its biggest field ever of 13 teams.

Ever Bilena Cosmetics Inc., Metro Pacific Investments Corporation and Columbian Auto Car Corporation were all accepted as expansion ball clubs for next season, which gets off the ground in October this year.

“It’s a first for the PBA, a momentous event,” commissioner Chito Salud said when he met with media after a marathon hearing with the board of governors and representatives of those three companies.

“The board saw each of them as liquid (financially), profitable and can add value to the league,” Salud said as the acceptance of the three marked the first time in the storied history of the PBA that more than one company was accepted.

The last time that the league had an expansion was in the year 2000 when Red Bull, now the Barako Bull Energy, was accepted. That followed after the league played several years with just eight teams and took in Tanduay in 1999.

That means that the league will have doubleheader playdates at least four times a week next season for all the teams to be able to maximize the media values that the PBA can give as the best sports advertising vehicle in the country.

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Those three companies will pay a franchise fee of P100 million each, and will be shelling out an average of at least P50 million a year to maintain a team.

Salud did not divulge a payment scheme, though the PBA has been known to be very flexible in allowing its ballclubs to come up with a payment term.

“That’s been settled,” Salud said of the franchise fee.

That all of those teams will be spending that much could only mean one thing – additional jobs for dozens of players who have been out of work of late.

With the new teams coming in, there will be a need for at least 42 more active players, dozens of utility personnel, teams of coaches, a handful of physical therapists, team drivers, and what have you, which is definitely good news.

According to Salud, his office did a count and at least 40 players – who have the skills to be active in the PBA at this point but have found no takers – are available, and that each of the current 10 teams now in the fold will be asked to give up two players each in the expansion draft.

The current teams have 14 active players in their respective lineups and each has at least two players in the restricted free agents list. Salud will ask for the 14 names that they will protect after the current season, with all the others becoming fair game during the expansion draft.

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Ever Bilena will carry the name of the Black Water Elite, MPIC will be the NLEX Road Warriors, while Columbian Auto Car will be known as KIA Motors in the PBA and will come up with a contest among PBA fans on what its moniker would be.

What’s interesting to find out in the next few months is who will become the faces of these three teams – much like when one says Talk ‘N Text and Jimmy Alapag immediately comes to mind.

Or when you say Purefoods of old and Alvin Patrimonio and Jerry Codinera will instantly be mentioned. Toyota was the team of Sonny Jaworski and Mon Fernandez, and Crispa was Atoy Co. and Bogs Adornado.

The first players that these new teams will tap will eventually spell where they will be headed in their early years in the league, and it will be a tough task for each of them as they have been given the 11th, 12th and 13th picks in the first round of the next Draft.

The order of picking will be determined by a lottery and picking that late would mean that they will have to settle for mediocre talent coming from the rookie pool, with a franchise player certainly a long shot at that stage in the proceedings.

But overall, those three teams are certainly just happy to be admitted, and without asking their team representatives, they know that building a winning team definitely will not come overnight.

Taking players directly was an old concession that the board denied the three new members, which could have given them some hope of coming up with a fighting squad in their first year in the league.

Even then, it still is not a guarantee. Rain or Shine labored for several years despite being able to bring Jay-R Reyes and eventually getting Gabe Norwood in the Draft.

Battling in the board room to be accepted was one thing that KIA, Black Water and NLEX easily hurdled. But once they start playing, that’s when the birth pains come in. Only then will they know how tough life is in the PBA.