It’s all but over for GMA in terms of sports.
This came after the Shakey’s V-League bolted to rival ABS-CBN earlier this week, leaving GMA without any sporting events to cover (unless one counts the boxing fights on GMA News TV’s ‘All Sports’ as an event). The new deal will see all of the games aired live on Sports+Action SD, HD and on livestream every Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays starting at 4:00 p.m.
GMA News TV had been the home of the Shakey’s V-League since 2013. When GMA inked a deal with the V-League and Sports Vision that year, it coincided with the sudden rise of volleyball in the country, capped off by a sold-out UAAP women’s volleyball final series between popular rivals Ateneo and La Salle.
Once the deal began, however, problems ensued. Games were still aired on a delayed basis, primarily due to News TV’s commitment to news programming, and although later tournaments saw live broadcasts, the lack of willingness from GMA and News TV proved hard to overcome.
In the end, the V-League allowed its contract with GMA to expire, and when it came time for a new television contract, they sought ABS-CBN Sports. It was a perfect fit, and with the latter having turned the UAAP women’s volleyball tournament into must-see TV, they are now expected to do the same for the V-League.
GMA’s lack of a sports division has been well-documented on From the Tube. As ABS-CBN and TV5 continued to make strides in airing some of the top sporting events in the country, GMA is left to lick their wounds wondering what might have been.
Considering their status as the No. 2 network in the country (sorry AGB Nielsen), GMA should have been keeping up with ABS-CBN in virtually every department. Instead, their lack of resources was exposed, and thanks to the impending return of ‘Encantadia’, expect more of their hidden revenue to go down the drain.
Now that the Shakey’s V-League is out of GMA, uncertainty looms in the northern corner of EDSA and Timog Avenue. A long, rainy season awaits for the Kapuso network, and without any big-name sporting events, the possibility of a GMA Sports division is now all but diminished.
From the Tube 
To be honest, Gozon is trying to defend all bad actions of losing (such as this one) despite their comparative advantage on children’s programming and news and documentaries.
After three years of publishing your intriguing post of not having a sports division on GMA, when will they ever learn? To emulate Don McLean’s song entitled “Vincent,” perhaps they never will.
GMA cannot be a No. 2 station without a sports division, period. They’re more like a 2.5. Same goes to TV5. They may be No. 3 right now, but they’re more like a 2.5 as well with sports and news as an advantage, and entertainment as a disadvantage.
That said, both networks seem to complement each other with these disadvantages. It’s like they have each other’s backs right now.
It makes me wonder if one or both of those two will ever pull off something like what happened with The CW, where they started out doing teen or female oriented programming (e.g. ANTM, One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, TVD), then decided to diversify their programming with emphasis on quality.
Then again, that’s the problem I see with the big 3 and their #NetworkWarCulture: they keep on chasing the same demographic that their programming schedule starts to look and feel nearly the same (although I know TV5 has more sports and dubbed American programming, while GMA seems to excel more in news, as said in the comments here).
Same in the U.S., where CBS, ABC, NBC and FOX are essentially chasing the same demographic with their programming. Unfortunately, only ABS has been the near-equivalent of those American networks; GMA and TV5 still have a long way to go.
Another note: They will not use the sponsor’s name and logo (Shakey’s) dun sa coverage nila.
They don’t have such restrictions while covering the FilOil tournament. So why get rid of the Shakey’s brand in their V-League coverage? It doesn’t make sense.
before Sport Vision and ABS agrees with the terms of contract. They negotiate with Shakey’s about the branding. Remember, Shakey’s have been synominous with V-League and may may utang ng loob yun Sports Visison sa Shakey’s so the branding will still be there.
Now we’ll wait and see if they’ll put that to good use, considering ABS’ penchant for not mentioning sponsor names in sporting events most of the time.
Well it is still called and promotes the league as “Shakey’s V-League” Sports Vision and ABS handles the production using ABS’s state of the art equipment. While ABS is responsible in advertising the league.
Great. Problem resolved. Nothing to fear about.
Nganga overall ang GMA sa sports and they risked everything for Encantadia remake. GMA News TV is now a waste and GMA’s decisions will haunt them in the short-term as we’re on our way to digitalization. News TV All Sports is also a waste at puro boxing lang ang nakikita mo. Their collapse is imminent.
Pagmamayabang lang ang kaya ngayon ng GMA by claiming na #1 sila sa NUTAM each and every time (Metro Manila and Luzon lang ang kaya nila).
That’s why they’re just a 2.5 with all these problems. Hindi No. 2, kundi 2.5 lang (tied with TV5).
Dapat ibalik nalang yung Q channel 11
We’ve been saying that for a long time now. News TV is anything but a news channel due to its endless amount of non-news content, and they don’t even pale in comparison to ANC. It still looks like Q, only the brand was different.
The Encantadia remake/reboot was the reason GMA 7’s money crumbled down!
I like Encantadia the way it is back then and they should have never tried rebooting it in the first place.
Don’t blame the remake. It was the original trilogy’s fault. Those years they spent on making that series really affected GMA’s financial standing. No wonder the network was unable to diversify their business further.