Is Summit Sports hiding?

What ever happened to Summit Sports World, Inc., the company that entered into agreement with NBN Channel 4 for the TV coverage of the PBA games in 2003? Are officials of the company in hiding? Why has the case suddenly died down, leaving an estimated P200-plus million in debt to the PBA, NBN, IBC-13 and several suppliers hanging in limbo?

According to NBN officials during that time, Summit Sports, through its chairman Fidel Cu, originally agreed to fund the network’s coverage of the PBA games, including the massive, P200 million franchise fee. At that time, the parties also agreed to simultaneously air the games over both government networks NBN and IBC, in the hope that this unprecedented move would generate additional revenue which would more than make up for the tremendous airtime costs. NBN would produce the TV coverage, and buy airtime on IBC with Summit’s funding.

To make sure they would be able to get all the necessary advertisers, NBN also acquired the services of Video Arts, Inc., the company of veteran sports marketer Boy Santiago. Santiago has been involved in marketing live and televised sports events for over two decades. Santiago has a long list of successful campaigns, including multi-sports competitions, such as the Olympics Games, Southeast Asian Games and Metropolitan Basketball Association, among others. He is currently marketing the coming Southeast Asian games here in the Philippines.

Since the network, then being run by chair Mia Concio and general manager Joey Isabelo, realized that they could not do it alone, they hired several of the industry’s known personalities and entities to help produce the television coverage. Augmenting NBN’s personnel were veteran sports broadcasters, writers, producers, and even the producers of The Basketball Show, who were tasked to create and submit features for halftime of all the games.

Everything was going smoothly in the beginning. Then payments started getting delayed, causing concern particularly with both television networks, who were hoping to use the much-needed revenue to upgrade their equipment and refurbish their studios. After a few weeks, the payments stretched further and further apart. Summit Sports reportedly replaced Santiago, even after he had supposedly secured hundreds of millions of pesos in commitments from sponsors, and hired their own marketing group. This muddled the scenario, since Video Arts wanted to make sure that it would receive the commissions for the sponsors it had already gotten on behalf of the PBA TV coverage. An agreement was also supposedly made for Summit to collect some receivables so that it could pay off some of its debts.

Gradually, the debts ballooned on all fronts. The PBA was not getting paid its franchise fee (which was to be paid in regular installments as a concession to the economic problems at the time). NBN and IBC were not getting paid for the airtime, which is supposed to be settled before each broadcast. It came to a point that IBC officials met to consider pulling the plug on the PBA broadcasts. This, in turn, created a chicken and egg situation. IBC was not getting paid rental for its airtime. But if they stopped airing the PBA, it would be harder for them to get paid. Summits debts allegedly accumulated to somewhere in the neighborhood of over P200 million in franchise fees and airtime payments to both NBN and IBC.

Eventually, Rolando Silva, executive vice-president and chief finance officer of Summit Sports, and their attorney, Epimaco "Er" Magpantay, met with the network and suppliers, promising to pay. The company declared that it would not be able to pay right away, but promised to do so in a reasonable amount of time. Hearings at the Pasay Regional Trial Court were held, all those owed were notified. Eventually, suppliers no longer received notices of hearings. Summit’s office in Makati, and another in Pasay were vacated.

In the meantime, the PBA, NBN, IBC and all the suppliers were left hanging, with no idea how they were going to be compensated for their services. It caused untold internal damage to the two networks in particular, who were attempting to rebuild, but ended up merely trying to survive. It’s hard to tell which network suffered the more crippling blow. The loss of revenue made it difficult for the networks to maintain their massive overhead, let alone dream of buying new equipment and producing more shows. The Office of the Government Corporate Counsel (OGCC), is representing the two networks in the attempt to collect what is due them.

This writer attempted to contact Atty. Magpantay, who represented Summit in meetings with suppliers. After this writer personally placed more than 50 phone calls to his home, mobile phone and office, including no less than a dozen text messages to his mobile over a span of weeks, the lawyer has yet to respond. Other communication to his listed office address has also gone unacknowledged.

A former NBN official has informed The STAR that they have not heard from Summit for a long time. They said that the company was placed in receivership, but ask what there is to receive. Is Summit hoping that the case will simply go away? What about all the people who worked in good faith, promised that they would be compensated? What about the harm done to the PBA, NBN, IBC and all their suppliers? Is Summit Sports just going to run away from it all?