A league on the rise: UAAP media through the years

People have always felt the need to be entertained even during the days of the mighty gladiators, a time when spectators demanded people to fight to the death in exchange for what they paid. Fortunately, as the years went by, the forms of entertainment changed and became less cruel, yet the principle of crowds seeking thrill and excitement remained the same. In the Philippines, the UAAP, one of the country’s most popular leagues, serves that purpose in its own way.

Aside from the regular thrill and excitement, rivalries are a usual sight in the UAAP, with the fan bases’ competitive spirit even extending far beyond sporting events. What’s even more interesting is that fans today are not just students from these eight schools, but also include countless Filipinos nationwide, making the UAAP not just a mere collegiate event, but also ingrained in the Filipino culture.

The attention that the UAAP gets today was nowhere near the level it was years before, with media coverage being one of the main catalysts that brought the league to its current position. “Malagay lang name namin sa school newspaper masaya na kami dati,” said Alex Depante Jr., a former Green Spiker who now works for DLSU’s Office of Sports Development (OSD).

First steps

Aside from local and student publications, the earliest form of coverage in the UAAP happened in 1979, with the Intercontinental Broadcasting Channel (IBC) as the pioneer network. IBC’s services lasted for nine more years until the UAAP decided to renew their contract with RPN or the Radio Philippines Network from 1989 to 1994. RPN is currently the broadcaster and affiliate of CNN Philippines, the local franchise of Cable News Network in the Asia-Pacific Region.

The UAAP decided to try other media outlets again by the end of 1994, and hired the services of People’s Television Network (PTV). Other programs PTV is known for are its award-winning knowledge shows like Tele-aralan ng Kakayahan and Ating Alamin back in the 1990s.

However, PTV’s tenure in covering the UAAP didn’t last long, as by the end of 1999 the UAAP would set its eyes on a network that could possibly catapult its popularity to greater heights. The UAAP’s current media partner, ABS-CBN, did just that, taking the league’s popularity to a much larger scale since it started its coverage back in 2000 until 2013 through its subsidiary channel Studio 23, and now presently with ABS-CBN Sports+Action. From just being able to read the final score days after the game itself on the newspaper, the UAAP has now reached a worldwide audience via The Filipino Channel (TFC).

One of ABS-CBN’s major contributions was letting students become part of the UAAP scenery by starting the courtside reporter program. For this program, students are given the chance to be a courtside reporter for one of these eight schools, if not their own school.

Lastly, the emergence of social media has also helped spike the UAAP’s popularity. For the past three years, attendance during the Men’s Basketball and Women’s Volleyball Finals has hovered at around 20,000 spectators gathering in the MOA Arena and Smart-Araneta Coliseum. In an interview with ABS-CBN News, Dino Laurena, head of ABS-CBN Integrated Sports says “Yung women’s volleyball, magtataka kayo na ‘yung mga nanonood ng championships mula pa sa semifinals, bumabyahe ‘yan mula probinsya kahit wala silang koneksyon ano man sa mga eskwela.”

Beyond the usual

The UAAP General Championship has been around since the league’s formation over 70 years ago, but asking a common fellow about the UAAP during those times would get answers that would probably revolve around one sport.

Although UAAP TV coverage started during the 1980s, the past networks were limited to covering only basketball, leaving the other sports in the shadows.

Luckily for the UAAP, ABS-CBN’s arrival came in as the renaissance period they needed as popularity of not just basketball spiked, but of other sports as well. For instance, the recently concluded 2015 UAAP Cheerdance Competition saw a record of 25,388 paying audience grace the event in part because of the growing publicity it has received over the years.

As of press time, ABS-CBN Sports shows weekly live coverage of men’s football and men’s volleyball via Balls HD, a subsidiary of ABS-CBN, with the aforementioned sports continually airing on tape-delay via ABS-CBN Sports+Action.

Losing grip

Although the UAAP has ABS-CBN to thank for popularizing the league, it is continuing to let ABS-CBN become more creative with regard to how the sporting events would be covered. According to the agreement between the UAAP and ABS-CBN, the latter is allowed to include programs that would enhance the watching experience of the viewers. This means that the courtside reporters and many other programs seen when watching a UAAP game are entirely ABS-CBN’s.

“I didn’t even know there was a [courtside reporter], [ABS-CBN] just told us that they wanted to engage the students during games,” said UAAP board member Edwin Reyes regarding ABS-CBN’s actions.

However, Reyes was quick to respond, saying that ABS-CBN’s actions pose no harm for the league and its member schools, but actually increase the popularity of not just basketball, but of other sports as well. “We’re at a better position right now with ABS [-CBN] than we would be with other networks,” Reyes concluded.

A new five-year contract between the UAAP and ABS-CBN has been signed starting this Season 78, lasting until Season 82. With the great improvements brought about by ABS-CBN and its other media platforms in just a short
amount of time, there’s no telling how high the UAAP’s popularity will grow in a couple more years.