The Philippine Basketball Association, the country’s undisputed No. 1 sports entertainment
business, may take a new venture of doing its own TV coverage by next season.

PBA commissioner Chito Salud and key staff members have discussed the idea to be presented to the
league’s Board of Governors in a meeting on Jan. 25.

“If there’s no formal offer from any network, we’ll take the option of producing the games
ourselves,” said Salud.

“We can’t leave ourselves at the mercy of the networks. If there’s no bidders, we’ll do the
coverage,” Salud added.

The youthful league commissioner said there’s a block in the Board that’s been pushing for this
for some time now.

Solar Sports is the PBA’s current exclusive TV coveror. Their contract expires at the end of the
season, and Solar has informed the PBA that it’s not seeking contract renewal.

“The PBA itself being the producer and coveror of its games may be a better proposition. We think
it’s doable,” said PBA media bureau chief Willie Marcial.

“In such a case, the PBA has full control of in-venue and TV advertisings. In the present set-up,
we’re only in control of the in-venue ads,” said Marcial.

TV is another huge source of income for the league aside from gate receipts.

The PBA would have earned around P.5 billion by the end of its 2008-2011 contract with Solar
Sports.

“Pinagaaralan na ng PBA ang negosyo at ang tingin ay talagang kaya,” said Marcial.