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THE
Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) has a new home
for the next three seasons.
The
board of governors unanimously picked Solar Sports as
the league’s new television coveror, commissioner Sonny
Barrios announced Tuesday after their meeting at the PBA
office in Libis,
Quezon City.
“Only a
few minor kinks have to be worked out but the board
decided to choose Solar Sports as the league’s new TV
coveror for 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons,”
Barrios told the BusinessMirror.
 “For the
meantime, both parties will sign a memorandum of
understanding [MOU] just to move along dahil may
legalistic features pa ang kontrata na dapat
pag-usapan,” he added.
Among
them are the terms of payment to be made by Solar Sports
and the airtime contract.
Barrios
refused to divulge how much the total contract is worth
although there are reports the deal is close to P500
million.
“We
prefer not to deal first with the amount of the
contract. What we’re after is the substantial
improvement that Solar Sports can bring to the coverage
of the games of the PBA,” said Barrios.
The
games will be aired on RPN-9 and Solar officials
promised to provide state-of-the-art coverage for the
next three seasons.
“First,
they were elated about the board awarding them the
broadcast rights. Then, they told the board members that
they’ll invest on graphics and slow-mo features to
uplift the PBA coverage,” Barrios said.
All of
the members of the board were present except for
Coca-Cola’s John Baylon, who just sent his proxy vote to
Barrios through e-mail.
Solar
Sports, which has been around the industry and is known
for airing National Basketball Association (NBA) games
on cable and local channels, were represented by their
head of sales Nitoy Nocos, vice president for marketing
Jude Turcuato and business development head Raul de la
Cruz.
Barrios
hopes the MOU would be signed by both parties within the
week and the complete terms of the contract would be
finalized at most three weeks from Tuesday.
With
Solar Sports now officially the league’s TV coveror,
Barrios said the bid of Makisig Channel would no longer
be entertained, for now.
Makisig
reportedly was keen to revive its bid after the
withdrawal of ABS-CBN last week. The contract of the
current coveror, ABC 5, will expire at the end of the
ongoing Fiesta Cup. |
