PBA commissioner Chito Salud bared on Thursday that the league's broadcast partner Sports5 has committed to air all games live on flagship channel TV5 starting next season.
Salud broke the good news to Spin.ph on Thursday, saying he has been informed by Sports5 head Chot Reyes of the broadcasters' readiness to air the games live on TV5 under a revised format that will have the league playing nine games over five playdates in a week starting next season.
“All games will now be live on TV5. Yes, dalawang laro na ang live,” said Salud. “Chot and I are always in touch and he had informed me of this development, quite recently.”
The league chief said that the development is the league’s answers to the call to make the PBA more accesible and viewer friendly to the fans, who had been up in arms over what they felt was a confusing broadcast format for the games this season.
“That’s should be a very positive development for our fans, we’ll be live on five,” he said.
Over the last season and half, the Manny V. Pangilinan-controlled network has split the airing of the games between TV5 and its sister channel on the UHF band, AksyonTV 41.
This set-up has been drawn flak from fans especially those with no access to cable TV, where Aksyon TV41 has a clearer signal.
And to cope with the increased number of members and games, Salud bared that the PBA will play nine games over five game days in a week, with double-headers to be played on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays and out-of-town games on Saturdays.
See video of full interview with Commissioner Salud:
Salud, however, hinted that the league will still maintain the usual exciting and ‘all games important’ format of the games.
“We’re finalizing the formats for next season’s three conferences, because there will be 12 teams unlike before where we are used to watching only 10 ballclubs,” he said.
“But those are slight changes lang. Slight change lang to make it more exciting,” he added. “The objective of the league is to make all games with bearing so the fans will be curious and excited.”
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