Made for television

In the Philippines, a sport needs to get big on television to become acceptable to the mass audience. It has to be seen regularly on free TV to curry the fancy of more than its core spectators and participants. As football has proven with the rise of the Azkals since their first AFF Championship (now known as the AFF Suzuki Cup) exposure in 2010, and as women’s volleyball has shown in the last three years, a certain blend of maturity, timing, impact, media exposure and strong personalities or rivalries has to come together to light up our collective imagination. There has to be a story, and usually it’s an underdog tale that we love best.

Speaking of underdogs, football was already ripe to become the next big thing. First of all, it is a widely- played school sport which is popular as recreation in the Visayas and Mindanao. It only needed to unify its market, and create heroes for a mass following. The base was strong and loyal. Add to this the realization that most Filipino children will not really grow up to be more than six feet tall and have a decent chance at a professional career as basketball players. Now, the sport is even more fortified in our minds as ABS- CBN is covering more and more UAAP games, and there are decent pitches to hold quality tournaments in, the next question is if football has already reached its peak, or rise up to even greater heights as the pioneering Azkals reach the twilight of their careers.

On the other hand, parents also realize that it is a long shot for their boys to rise up to world champion status in professional boxing. Many would not wish the hazards of that job in their children, anyway. How many years will your 15-year old have to take a beating before he earns decent money? This is assuming he doesn’t get injured, cheated, mismanaged or given bad advice along the way. Young pros only earn a couple of thousand pesos per fight, and have to spend on their management, food and other needs. Many gamble on traveling abroad as tourists to fight in unsanctioned bouts, and come home badly beaten, or in body bags. All to make a quick buck that they pay for in the long term.

Women’s volleyball was also quite fortunate. First of all, it is a mandatory sport in both the UAAP and NCAA. Secondly, many parents in the provinces have overcome their reluctance to let their daughters live and study in Metro Manila. Originally, it was harder to recruit for women’s volleyball because the general attitude was that the young women would get corrupted, or were being groomed to produce grandchildren or take care of their parents in their dotage. This change in belief is reinforced by the possibility of playing in tournaments like the Shakey’s V-League, which itself needed a certain gestation period before becoming a staple of our lives as sports spectators for both the live games and the broadcast coverage. With the unscripted rivalry of De La Salle and Ateneo likewise emerging in the last four years, it has given a big sports story for second-semester sports, as well.

There are, of course, some sports that have trouble translating to television in a Philippine setting. Running is more a participatory sport than a spectator sport so far. You can’t build a series out of it, and you can only analyze so much about a runner getting cramps and picking up his second wind. Also, the investment in terms of television coverage is larger than average because it isn’t held in a confined space. Lastly, the leading personalities of the sport are not mainstream celebrities yet. Though there are many, many advertisers supporting running events or trade marking them as their own, the appeal hasn’t reached critical mass yet.

Which sports have the potential to break through, given the right television exposure in the next few years? Football was the rare sport that was played widely, had attractive lead characters, and got great TV mileage. It is also unique in that it doesn’t fall into the point- per-minute pace that Filipinos traditionally enjoy, and propelled local basketball, boxing and billiards events into regular broadcast staples. So who’s next?

Taekwondo and arnis are two possibilities, the former more of a ripe candidate than the latter. The Philippines is a viable world contender both in sparring and poomsae. There is a rich history with Olympians like Monsour del Rosario and Stephen Fernandez and their successors. It is played widely and at a high level. Matches are short and intense, perfect for television commercial placement, the only problem is there is no professional level of competition yet. Amateur safety standards have held the sport back, as they have with boxing and other combat sports. That is why Olympic boxing is leaning towards professional rules. If you can’t see the combatant’s face, how can you cheer for him? Besides, everybody wears the generic red and blue. Tennis became more lively when athletes started showing their personalities through their attire, save for staid old Wimbledon.

Arnis is also quite intriguing. It is played actively all over the nation, despite the lack of implementing rules and regulations (IRR) for the Arnis Law passed in 2009. There are also wide differences in the rules, which propagated in different directions since the late 1980’s. But on the whole, the loud, action- packed three-minute matches are perfectly suited for television. With just a little push from print and broadcast news, some faces could emerge from the crowd and attract the right sponsor.

Locally, mixed martial arts is actually in a better situation, since some of our local athletes have crossed into the international market via organizations like One Fighting Championship (OneFC) and to a lesser degree, PXC. Their events are always packed and great tons of print publicity. The sport has translated well across Asia, because of the rich, diverse martial arts culture here. Locally, no real consistent awareness has been built on a national scale. A little organization and development could go a long way in redeeming its leadership position as the next big thing in local sports television. Four years ago, even world women’s bodybuilding champion Luzviminda McClinton wanted to put up a school-based MMA league.

There are a few other sports that have a shot at gaining at least a niche following on television: handball and rugby chief among them. Each has a lot of movement and action, but don’t yet have the base of participants with enough technical knowledge to springboard to mainstream acceptance yet. Each is also still unfamiliar, but will not be as challenging to learn in the next few years. Tackle football is another sport worth taking a look at, but the audience has to be educated first, and overcome the stigma of it being too American and too violent. Luckily, all of their top tournaments are being broadcast on cable, so they aren’t starting from scratch. As Filipino audiences mature, they may accept them as part of a wider menu of sports in the years to come.

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