PBA fans fume amid confusion over TV, livestream coverage

Complaints on conflicting schedules, difficulty of logging into new livestream app mar first few days of PBA season
Jul 17, 2021

CONFUSION over the free TV, cable and livestream coverages of the 2021 Philippine Cup season has alienated a lot of fans, leading to frustration.

Fans were surprised to find out that Saturday’s first game between TNT and Terrafirma was not shown as scheduled on ONE Sports, a free TV channel, and was only aired on cable channel PBA Rush via Cignal.

Instead, a replay of the Gilas Pilipinas match against Korea in the Fiba Asia Cup and the Premier Volleyball League live games were aired on ONE Sports.

Prior to the season, the PBA announced that Saturday doubleheaders will all be shown live on ONE Sports. But frustration has grown as the telecast schedules continues to be changed without prior notice.

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The opening day of the PBA Philippine Cup on Friday wasn't spared from confusion as viewers were left frustrated looking for the livestream of the three matches.

On Friday, the SMART Sports and PusoPilipinas Facebook page only showed the second game between Rain or Shine and NLEX and the third match pitting Meralco against NorthPort. The first match between Alaska and Blackwater wasn't made available online.

TV, livestream woes alienate fans

Overseas-based fans, meanwhile, claimed that the Facebook Live broadcast was not not made available in their respective areas.

Last year, the livestream coverage of the games in the Clark bubble was made available on the Facebook pages of both the PBA and ONE Sports.

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    This year, however, all PBA games were moved to the Cignal Play app and at Gigafest.Smart. Cignal Play is free but users must register while Gigafest.Smart viewers must use data from the mobile service in order to watch the matches.

    A number of fans complained about the difficulty of registering in the Cignal Play app, which is also experienced by volleyball fans wanting to watch the inaugural Premier Volleyball League (PVL) games in Ilocos Norte.

    Cignal App later went to social media to announce that it is trying to fix a problem.

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