NBN saves Asiad

Starting September 29, and up until October 24, the Asian Games, the Olympics of Asia, will lay bare how well or how poorly we as a nation esteem our self-image as a sports power. And, if not for NBN 4, we would have missed it all.

With less than a month to go, NBN finally closed the deal for the rights to bring the Asiad to the Philippines with Dream Broadcasting. Another potential partner had apparently botched the deal, almost leaving NBN holding the bag. As the government network, NBN is mandated to bring the games to the people. It is of national interest.

"We were really surprised when other countries like Singapore and Brunei backed out of bidding for the coverage rights," confesses NBN chair Mia Concio. "But, with the help of our friends in the Asian Broadcasting Union, we were able to secure the rights."

But that was just the beginning of the challenge. The quirks of the host broadcaster would leave billiards, karate and a few other sports with no coverage at all, and boxing with exposure only from the quarterfinals up.

This was definitely unnacceptable to a country like ours which has world champions in billiards and boxing.

"That really impacted our costs," admitted Bobby Arias, who will be overall in charge of the coverage team in Busan, a four-hour drive from Seoul. "We will have to send cameras of our own. The problem would be when Bata Reyes, Django Bustamante and Antonio Lining would be playing all at the same time. Then we’d have a problem."

The same problem will exist for boxing, since two rings will be used for the elimination bouts. Basketball, for its part, will actually begin even before the Games open, due to the number of entries.

The short lead time also posed problems in acquiring broadcast positions for most of the sports, not to mention hotel accommodations for the lean team which will be going. Unlike in past Olympic and Asian Games coverages, NBN will only be deploying about a dozen people, at greatly increased comparative cost. Hotels alone will be at a premium, more so since the audiences in Korea still have a hangover from the World Cup.

Veteran announcers like Sev Sarmenta, Chino Trinidad, Recah Trinidad and Freddie Abando will be joined by a handful of newcomers who will have to hit the ground running. Physically, they will be taxed to their limits, since events will be going on simultaneously, and events which they may not be able to cover live will be annotated off-tube for consumption here in the Philippines. It will cost the network approximately P400,000 per member of their delegation to bring us the coverage on free TV.

On the technical side, the unavoidably late booking also forced the network to reconfigure their equipment to what is available. Therefore, they are now going fully digital, necessitating the mobilization of more equipment from the mother station in Quezon City.

But, on the other side of the equation, NBN management wants to show the human face of the Asian Games’ audience. On opening day, there will be seven live points from which the broadcast will emanate, including Busan itself.

"The production team here in Manila will have a much greater role, unlike in the past," Concio elaborates. "We want to show the magnitude of the Games. We want to convey the passion, the pride of Filipinos in our athletes. And we want to connect the families of the athletes to their men and women in Busan, so that they will not feel that they are alone."

NBN will also dedicate more coverage hours than at any time in the past, a minimum of nine to ten hours a day. They will also be receiving feeds of unaired events overnight, so there will be an abundance of material.

The good news is that, on opening day alone, the Philippines will have two shots at a gold medal in fencing. SEA Games silver medallist Richard Gomez may finally make it all the way to the finals. That would certainly hoist up audience interest.

"I thought the Asian Games would be harder," Concio adds. "But feedback from the advertisers is very encouraging. I’m very optimistic that we will do well, both in the medal standings and on television. There is a lot of support, and, I think, more parity in the Asian Games. Look at what happened in the World Basketball Championship. No one country will be able to dominate now, unlike before."

It will no doubt take a Herculean effort just to pull off the Asian Games broadcast without a hitch. But NBN is trying to take it up a notch by projecting how much sports means to us as a people. Our countryrmen certainly need inspiration in these difficult times. And the two weeks of the Asian Games will help tremendously, thanks to NBN 4.

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This week’s episode of The Basketball Show is bursting with championship fever. Catch highlights of the PBA Commissioner’s Cup Finals, the NCAA Finals and the UAAP Final Four, and an exclusive interview with former Red Bull import Tony Lang. The Basketball Show is broadcast over RPN 9 every Saturday at 12 noon.