The month of August means a new season for football leagues in Europe.
With that, ABS-CBN’s S+A will pick up from where it left off last season with a slate of early-morning matches from England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga and Italy’s Serie A. The schedule of games this August are as follows.
Club football is BACK! ⚽ Here's the LIVE telecast schedule this AUG on S+A 23! 📅 #EPL
8/12: Wolverhampton v Everton @ 12:25 AM 8/12: Arsenal v Man City @ 10:55 PM 8/19: Chelsea v Arsenal @ 12:25 AM 8/26: Liverpool v Brighton @ 12:25 AM 8/28: Man United v Tottenham @ 2:55 AM
8/19: Barcelona v Alaves @ 4:10 AM 8/21: Athletic Bilbao v Leganes @ 4:00 AM 8/27: Espanyol v Valencia @ 12:10 AM 8/27: Sevilla v Villareal @ 2:10 AM#SerieA
Unfortunately, these games are only exclusive to S+A SD on channel 23. As for S+A HD, ABS-CBN has yet to determine substitute programming in lieu of its SD counterpart’s live football coverage.
This will be the second year that ABS-CBN Sports will carry the likes of the Premier League and La Liga. The network signed a deal with Hong Kong’s Triple CH last November to broadcast these popular European leagues on free TV in cooperation with beIN Sport.
Lighter stories before noontime have become the norm for ABS-CBN in the last four years.
This Monday will be no exception, as the Kapamilya network premieres its newest series ‘Be My Lady’. Starring real-life couple Erich Gonzales and Daniel Matsunaga, ‘Be My Lady”s story will focus on the duo’s attempts to overcome their cultural differences in order to forge a life-long relationship.
In ‘Be My Lady’, Erich is Pinang, a simple and conservative Filipina. Her mother, played by Janice de Belen, worked in Singapore as an OFW in hopes of reclaiming the land that her husband (Al Tantay) once owned, but things went downhill for the family when she got deported due to an unfortunate incident.
Daniel, on the other hand, is Phil, an independent and liberal Brazilian-Japanese bachelor who lived with his mother (Priscilla Meirelles) in Singapore. Visiting the Philippines in order to attend the wedding of one of his best friends, he then found himself searching for his childhood friend, which also led him to an unlikely first meeting with Pinang.
The extended cast of ‘Be My Lady’ also includes Yayo Aguila, Almira Muhlach, Yves Flores, Karen Dematera, MJ Cayabyab, RK Bagatsing, Devon Seron, Karen Reyes, Mike Lloren, Ana Abad Santos, Perry Escano, Marife Necesito, and comedy trio No Direction. It is directed by Theodore Boborol and produced by Ruel Bayani.
‘Be My Lady’ will replace ‘Ningning’, whose finale takes place this Friday, January 15. While ‘Ningning’ has rated very well in its timeslot, it is clear that viewers badly missed the late-morning ‘kilig’ that once helped ‘Be Careful with My Heart’ become a hugely successful series.
That said, with all the hype surrounding ‘Be My Lady’, expect big things from the show as it gets underway. For Erich Gonzales and Daniel Matsunaga, this series should help bring out their best, both on-screen and off.
‘Be My Lady’ premieres this Monday at 11:30 a.m. on ABS-CBN.
A majority of the coverage will be dedicated to the Philippine national teams, with major focus on the country’s basketball, volleyball and football teams. Sports5 will also provide highlights to the country’s other teams, such as athletics, boxing and swimming.
While the opening ceremonies will take place on June 5, preliminaries of events such as football, netball and table tennis will get underway today. Both the opening and closing ceremonies will take place at the Singapore National Stadium, which will also host the athletics and football events.
In the previous SEA Games at Myanmar two years ago, the Philippines endured its worst performance of the event, finishing a paltry seventh in the medal round. Much of the blame is centered on Myanmar’s inclusion of indigenous sports in lieu of other well-known disciplines, forcing the country to send a smaller-than-expected delegation.
The poor performance of the country was further justified by the lack of extensive coverage by previous coveror ABS-CBN Sports (via Studio 23), who only covered basketball, football and boxing. The reluctance and eventual unwillingness of ABS-CBN Sports to extensively cover the event marked the low point of the SEA Games on Philippine television.
With ABS-CBN Sports now focusing more on college sports such as the UAAP and the recently-acquired NCAA, TV5 decided to further its portfolio towards international multi-sporting events. And the SEA Games became their latest coup.
The acquisition of the SEA Games, along with prior additions such as the Olympics and the Asian Games, gave Sports5 the three most important events in the calendar of the Philippine Olympic Committee. Not since the early 2000s had the rights to these three events belonged to one network.
That said, it is now up to TV5 to bring back a sense of pride and honor to the Filipino athlete. This year’s SEA Games should be a proving ground for the Philippines to regain its place among Southeast Asia’s best.
The 2015 Southeast Asian Games in Singapore will be held from June 5-16.
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