The 2008–09 PBA season was the 34th season of the Philippine Basketball Association. The season formally opened on October 4, 2008 and ended on July 17, 2009. This was the first time that the league will hold their opening ceremonies on a Saturday. The league started the season with the 2008-09 Philippine Cup, or the traditional All-Filipino Conference, while capping off the season with the import-laiden 2009 Fiesta Conference. The first activity of the season was the 2008 PBA Draft last August 31 at the Market! Market! in Taguig.

Pre-season events

Broadcast contracts

The 2008-09 season would be the first season under the PBA's new broadcast contract with Solar Sports. Games would now air on their cable channel Basketball TV, and on the stations of the Radio Philippines Network (who curiously, were the first broadcaster of the PBA) after an intense bidding war between Solar and ABS-CBN.

Team re-brandings

Major trades

Opening ceremonies

The season began on October 4 with the Talk 'N Text Tropang Texters defeating the Coca Cola Tigers, 98-97. The muses for the participating teams are as follows:

2008-09 Philippine Cup

Elimination round

Playoffs

Finals

Smart Gilas exhibition games

Exhibition games were held prior to Games 4 and 6 of the Philippine Cup finals between the Smart Gilas (Philippines team that will compete in the FIBA Asia Championship 2011) coached by Rajko Toroman and previously eliminated teams from the Philippine Cup. The games also marked the appearance of the newly renamed Burger King Titans team formerly known as the Air21 Express.

2009 Fiesta Conference

Notable events

Classification round

Playoffs

Finals

Philippines-Australia goodwill series

An Australian team was invited to a two-game series between the national team, with the winner of a game being awarded P75,000 (about A$4,340).

2009 PBA All-Star Weekend

The 2009 PBA All-Star Weekend was held from April 22 to 26 at three different cities, particularly: Victorias, Negros Occidental (April 22), Panabo, Davao del Norte (April 24), and Quezon City (April 26). The winners were:

All-Star Games

David Noel named the All-Star Game MVP.

Awards

Awards given by the PBA Press Corps

Cumulative standings

Elimination/classification rounds

Playoffs