The country’s oldest collegiate league is looking for a new home.
Days after the five-year partnership between the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) and media giant GMA Network concluded as the women’s volleyball tournament finals series wrapped up, reports are now emerging about the potential next partners of the league.
As per the report of sports publication Dugout, there are already four networks who have expressed their interest in taking in the league beginning season 102 later this year.
Specified in the said article are state-run PTV, the Iglesia Ni Cristo-affiliated NET25, the free-to-air news outlet Bilyonaryo News Channel, and, rather surprisingly, the league’s former home ABS-CBN.
It was noted that each media company have already expressed feelers or have met NCAA officials.
Meanwhile, Cignal TV, which operates One Sports, has also been sought as another potential partner, but did not make an outright bid for the league.
In a previous comment, the NCAA management committee disclosed that the league has already entered into talks with other outfits, but did not name any of those.
Mapua University’s Melchor Divina, who leads the committee, also reflected that the tie-up with GMA was a good one, noting the efforts made by the network throughout the duration of their broadcast deal from 2020 to 2026.
“Okay naman ang partnership with GMA. Actually noong nagsimula sila, pandemic. Ginawa nila lahat… Talagang [nag-effort] ‘yung GMA para ma-promote, mapaganda ang NCAA,” said Divina to reporters,
It was back in November 2020 when GMA confirmed that it has signed a broadcast deal with the NCAA after its previous partner, ABS-CBN, closed its sports division due to the non-renewal of its franchise.
Major NCAA games in athletics, aquatics, volleyball, and basketball then began airing on GTV in 2021, with select men’s basketball championships in its earlier years airing on the flagship GMA channel 7.
Eventually, that was tweaked, with the television setup being arranged that both GTV and Heart of Asia channels carrying the games, which were also made available online via GMA Network’s website and social media pages, as well as abroad via GMA Pinoy TV and GMA News TV.