The National Basketball Association is coming back to local airwaves in time with its season restart.
Earlier today, TV5 formally announced the deal with NBA to broadcast the games starting with league’s restart matches this Friday, July 31. In several teasers, the Kapatid network have already announced that they will broadcast weekend games starting August 1. Meanwhile, One Sports on channel 41 will air games every Monday and Friday mornings.
In an article published by PhilStar, it was also bared that both free TV channels will air select “seeding” games through the two rounds. Conference finals will be broadcasted in its entirety and shared by both stations, with the finals airing solely on 5.
The partnership also extends to the sister pay TV platform Cignal TV with the launch of a standalone 24/7 channel NBA TV Philippines. It will be launching on Friday via channels 96 (SD) and 262 (HD). The channel is expected to be a ‘glocal’ variant of the main US channel NBA TV.
The last piece that will complete the entire deal is the relaunching of NBA.com/Philippines later this year in conjunction with MediaQuest — TV5 and Cignal’s parent company — affiliate Smart Communications. Speaking of online, contents from the NBA website will also be shared through the Kapatid network’s digital properties.
NBA’s official merchandise will also return to local shores as the league relaunches the NBA Store through NBAStore.com.ph.
Before the Deal
Previously, the broadcast rights of the NBA was granted to Solar Entertainment. The said rights also covered Solar’s blocktime deal with ABS-CBN Sports that was inked in 2010 to screen the games on free TV. However, the pay TV broadcast remained with Solar’s Basketball TV and NBA Premium TV. That deal was later expanded in 2015 when both parties created a consortium that basically retained the erstwhile setup.
But in 2019, Solar decided to end its ties with the league upon the expiry of their contract in September due to the rumoured high licensing fees being imposed by the basketball league. In effect, both BTV and NBA Premium shut their operations, with ABS-CBN also not being able to carry the games on both channel 2 and S+A.
Though the Kapamilya network initially did not completely let go of their plans to broadcast the league with its own Sky Cable after announcing a joint bid with TV5/Cignal. But ABS later dropped out of the bid as they have to face the uncertainty brought by their franchise application issue and eventual shutdown.
CNN Philippines later stepped in when it showed weekend matches from the previous season last November in conjunction with NBA Philippines.
NBA will be screened on TV5 starting this Saturday at 9am. Meanwhile, One Sports will be airing the first game this Friday. Other details about the broadcast are yet to be made available.