Balls expands 24-hour sports TV coverage

Balls, a dedicated 24-hour sports television channel in SkyCable channel 34, yesterday celebrated its one-year anniversary with hopes of widening its scope outside the more popular sports it is showing like mixed martial arts, tennis, American football, cycling and golf.

“I didn’t even realized we’re a year now,” said Marjorie “Jojo” Estacio, who heads Balls and MAXXX, in yesterday’s press briefing at the ABS-CBN’s ELJ Building in Quezon City.

“We were very lucky that we started the test broadcast because we had the US Open tennis, which wasn’t shown in our competitors.

“From there, we’d started to show the Tour de France, the tennis tour and the Ultimate Fighting Championship, events we’d probably be showing for a long time,” she added.

Estacio particularly cited the UFC as the biggest hit as seen in the fans’ acceptance when UFC chief Lorenzo Fertitta and living legend Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell visited the country last month to promote the UFC.

“We didn’t expect that the fan awareness was that huge that’s why we’re negotiating with the UFC right now on holding UFC’s first live event in Asia here in the country,” Estacio said.

To date, Balls has shown and will be showing more from the NFL, US college football and basketball, the Rider Cup, PGA Championship, the Gillette World Sports, HBO boxing, Transworld Sports, Sports Science, Red Bull Air Race, soccer games, surfing and even cheerleading competitions abroad.

Balls also recently will be offering an array of spectacular sports events like the much-awaited light heavyweight bout between “Super” Joe Calzaghe and Roy “Superman” Jones tomorrow at the Mecca of Boxing – the Madison Square Garden – and UFC 91 on Nov. 16 top-billed by the title duel pitting reigning heavyweight champion Randy “The Natural” Couture and Brock Lesnar at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Balls will also televise live Season 8 of the Ultimate Fighter, UFC’s reality show, on Nov. 19 featuring teams by interim heavyweight champion Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira and former heavyweight champ Frank Mir.      – Joey Villar