NBA is back home

The long wait is over and the NBA will finally be back on Philippine TV. In a landmark agreement, the NBA and Cignal TV recently signed a multi-year contract for Filipino fans to enjoy games through free-to-air and satellite television. The NBA also inked a multi-year deal with digital services provider Smart Communications to deliver games and content via over-the-top streaming.

The partnerships will begin with the continuation of this season in Orlando and end after three more seasons in 2023, the year the Philippines is slated to host the FIBA World Cup with Japan and Indonesia. The free-to-air arrangement will cover four games a week – Friday and Monday on ONE Sports and Saturday and Sunday on TV5. Every game will be aired live with prime time replays on ONE Sports. On pay TV, it’s at least two games a day with 24-hour content over NBA TV Philippines that used to be known as NBA Premium, available by subscription to Cignal. On Friday, the opening two games in the “seeding” schedule will be shown live on NBA TV Philippines – New Orleans vs. Utah and the L.A. Lakers vs. the L. A. Clippers. The Lakers-Clippers duel will be live on ONE Sports. The package is a potential 18 different games a week.

Cignal is promoting the NBA breakthrough as “The Game You Love Is Home” and it couldn’t be more appropriate. The Filipinos’ passion for basketball is well-known the world over and when the NBA was off the air locally at the start of this season, it just wasn’t right. Something had to be done to bring the NBA back and Cignal made it happen.

Cignal vice president for content acquisition Vitto Lazatin, no stranger to the NBA as he has worked as an on-site broadcaster during the NBA Finals, said negotiations to bring the NBA back on Philippine TV began last year with ABS-CBN and Sky as partners. “When the NBA contract expired, we tried to get a deal through,” he said. “It wasn’t just a numbers issue, we talked about volume of games, how long the deal would be, what kind of rights we could get. Then the pandemic happened and the NBA suspended the season. It gave us time to focus and rework our plans. When ABS-CBN lost its franchise, we restudied the case and decided we can do this, we can make it work, it was down to us, we came to the realization that this was doable.”

Lazatin said Donna Reyes, in charge of partnerships at NBA Philippines, and Hong Kong-based Ramez Shiekh of NBA Asia played a key role in putting the contract to bed. But the man who gave the marching orders to get it done was chairman Manny V. Pangilinan. “We owe it to MVP,” said Lazatin. “He’s a huge fan and he took a personal interest in getting the deal done. Of course, Smart CEO and president Al Panlilio also got things going. Smart senior vice president and head of consumer wireless business Jane Jimenez-Basas was with us from the start at Cignal and knew how important this deal was. Cignal/TV5 CEO and president Robert Galang gave his unconditional support. Cignal vice president for channels and content Sienna Olaso made sure we had things in place for the feed. TV5 manager of sports Paolo Diaz contributed, too, with his knowledge and experience of having dealt with the NBA. I’d also like to thank March Ventosa and Dino Laurena of ABS-CBN and Sky as we were together at the start of this process.”

Basas called it an unprecedented development. “It’s never been made available in this way to digital customers,” she said. “According to the NBA, this is the first time that they’re actually going to be integrating a live-streaming site for the NBA games in a telco load pack.” Galang said the NBA games will reach millions and millions of homes nationwide. “During this pandemic, it gives us so much joy that we’ll give entertainment that they really love and missed,” he said. “We have such great news for all our subscribers and viewers.”

Panlilio said he reached out to NBA deputy commissioner and executive vice president of global marketing partnerships Mark Tatum who sits in the FIBA Central Board with MVP. “Mark appreciated the fact that we were going to take it on solely, by the MVP Group,” said Panlilio. “And he promised they would also work on their side so that mangyari na ito because the timetable’s just so short, there was a lot of trust between the two parties to make it happen.”