The Ateneo boasts two of the most influential collegiate athletes to have entered the Philippines’ collective consciousness. Dubbed the “Phenoms” of basketball and volleyball, respectively, Kiefer Ravena and Alyssa Valdez have reached a celebrity-like status, dominating the courts and the headlines alike as they ascend to the top.

Not one to waste Ravena and Valdez’s marketing potential, TV5 released “Phenoms,” an online series that was premised as a behind-the-scenes look into the lives of these student-athletes. The show debuted on August 2015 and, by October, the two were already professing their love for one another on national television during “Tonight with Boy Abunda.” Naturally, like the many showbiz counterparts before them, the couple was dubbed with their own love team moniker—KiefLy.

The evolution of the two—from athletic Phenoms to power couple—has been a phenomenon in itself. Their popularity speaks of the way we Filipinos view sports—as entertainment, and rightfully so. For the athlete is, first and foremost, an entertainer. The athlete shoots through a hoop and spikes over a net all for the applause of the public. So, really, when athletes profess their love for one another on national television, sparking kilig in millions of followers in the process, isn’t it simply the natural progression–nay, the peak–of sports entertainment?

Of course, I beg to differ.

I beg to differ not because I find love teams too corny. I beg to differ not because I find the circumstances of KiefLy too magical and coincidental. Rather, I beg to differ because I refuse to accept that the greatest takeaway we can get from these once-in-a-generation talents is a hashtag and a reality show. I beg to differ because I do not want the dialogue of sports to end up as mere tabloid fodder.

I believe that athletes can have a role in the public sphere that goes beyond mere entertainment. The oft-repeated phrase “Ball is life” may have been reduced to a machismo catchphrase but, to me, it implies that sports can find itself intertwined in the greatest of national issues: There is Manny Pacquiao’s political career, as well as his infamous views on homosexuality; the University Athletic Association of the Philippines’ attempts at curbing athletic piracy–a microcosm of our nation’s brain drain; and even the dirty underbelly of college recruitment and funding, not unlike the political practices of our country.

We can go international and talk about the Olympics as both a political statement and economic liability for its host country. We can discuss how African-Americans dominate professional athletic league rosters while playing under a predominantly white ownership, or just mention the plain disparity of women in the world of “masculine” sports.

But all of this is not to say that the Phenoms have done nothing for sports. Their influence on the youth and the future of collegiate sports cannot be understated, and is something that will be credited to them even when decades have gone by. But to treat these athletes, whether it be KiefLy or any other future iterations, as mere entertainers is simply a disservice to the influence they have on our society.