PBA defers nod on ABC-5 coverage

With most of its members on a holiday, the PBA board of governors postponed its meeting yesterday, thus delaying for a few more days the formalization of its deal with ABC-5 on the league’s television coverage for next season.

PBA commissioner Noli Eala said they’re looking to move the meeting on Monday as they want to make a decision before the year ends, giving their new coveror more time to prepare for the job to be done.

A reliable source said closure of the deal between the PBA and ABC-5 would just be a formality with practically all board members having given their nod on the network now owned by former PBA franchise (Mobiline) owner Tonyboy Cojuangco.

Board chairman Jun Cabalan himself admitted to The STAR that ABC-5 has the edge but he didn’t want to make an announcement without the presence of the other governors.

"This is a major decision so we’ll try to assemble the board in a lunch meeting Monday," said Cabalan.

The STAR source said the PBA and ABC-5 are now only threshing out details that "are not deal-breakers."

"These are not sensitive issues because both parties are willing to bend. ABC-5 has given its proposal and the PBA its counter-proposal. Talagang formality na lang ang kulang sa deal," said the same source.

The PBA has reportedly made suggestions on how to bring down to the minimum delayed airing of the games. This came about as ABC-5 has said it could not carry PBA games on primetime as it intends to improve its news program as part of its plan to restructure and be competitive against business giants ABS-CBN-2 and GMA-7.

On revenue-sharing, the PBA’s concern now is how to make the league more viable so it could get a lot more than the guaranteed P100 million pay offered by ABC-5.

On satellite reach, ABC-5 admitted initial problems but promised to do everything to make substantial improvement within the season.

The PBA is to rescind its supposed P670-million three-year contract with the NBN-IBC consortium because of the latter’s failure to meet its financial obligations.

The league gave NBN-IBC a notice on Dec. 1, asking the consortium to pay its debt of P134 million or their contract for the exclusive coverage rights of PBA games would be terminated by Dec. 31.

NBN-4 admitted it couldn’t comply and went on its own in a bid to have another deal with the PBA — minus old partners IBC-13 and financier Summit Sports World Inc. this time.

Jemah Productions is another outfit hoping to steal the contract from ABC-5. The Marc Roces-owned productions, which did the coverage of the recent Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam, made a last-ditch proposal last Monday.

The board deferred a decision Tuesday, saying NBN-4’s and Jemah’s proposals are worth looking at.