IBC-13 TO AIR MBA GAMES ON PBA DAYS
Manila, March 8, 1998 - It is a first on Philippine TV, and could be good or bad for basketball fans and for the sport.
ABS-CBN and IBC-13 have signed a contract for a joint telecast of all MBA games, starting with the kick-off rites in Lingayen, beamed live nationwide.
The memorandum of agreement, signed for ABS-CBN by assistant general manager Rolando Cruz and for IBC by its president, Gen. Amylene Temple.
Channel 13 airs PBA games on the 5 p.m.-12 p.m. slot bought by Vintage Promotions through a five-year blocktime sales agreement which gives the government-sequestered station P11 million per month.
Sports columnist Beth Celis said the four-hour, thrice weekly MBA slot on Channel 13 would mean that "Viewers of Channel 13 will have basketball coming out of their ears on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays; this may eventually turn off viewers and both leagues may suffer."
PBA commissioner Jun Bernardino, however, welcomed the coming of the MBA because the "biggest beneficiaries will be the players, who will use the MBA as a spring board to the PBA, where their skills will be honed."
"Now, whether the move to air the MBA games on the PBA's home station is unethical or immoral, I don't know," Bernardino said. "But if we talk of legality, it seems that the move was legal, because they were able to do it."
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