Television aiding sports development

Television aiding sports development

By Antariksawan Jusuf

JAKARTA (JP): Television and sports have evolved into a
mutually beneficial association, and in a developing nation like
Indonesia, television sometimes becomes the backbone of sports
development.

As an entertainment, sports can attract viewers who become the
target for sponsors. And the aim of commercial television is to
provide wide distribution for sponsor value. In the end, wide
distribution is in tandem with high revenue for stations.

A good example of direct TV-sports relations was reported by
SporTVision magazine, which states that an Australian television
station has "interfered" in the number of sports for the 1998
Commonwealth Games, to be held in Kuala Lumpur in September.

Normally in a multiple sports competition, the host committee
decides the number and variety of sports to be played. And, the
magazine states, the Malaysian committee has added cricket and
rugby, both popular sports in Australia, to make Australia's
Channel 9 pay serious money for the rights to broadcast the
Games.

As Indonesia's monetary crisis has encroached on television
advertising revenue to the tune of more than 70 percent, sports
development is at stake. The semipro soccer league (Ligina) aired
weekly on ANteve, and its Division I and II, have been canceled
due to the worsening situation.

Indonesia's volleyball league season this year was scheduled
to commence in August but has met the same fate. The crisis has
forced the Indonesian Volleyball Association (PBVSI) cancel this
year's season, PBVSI official Sutardiono said.

This year also saw several foreign coaches, including Henk
Wullems (soccer) and Gebhard Gritsch (lawn tennis), pack their
bags and head for home.

The deteriorating economy has also forced the Indonesian
soccer association, PSSI, to surrender its chance to become the
host of this year's regional football championship, the Tiger
Cup, to Vietnam.

The lesser-known basketball league (Kobatama) has had to oust
its imported players, who pocketed contract fees in dollars,
following the slump of the rupiah against the greenback. Luckily,
Kobatama is still going.

Basketball is a fine example of how television can support the
growth of sports. SCTV took over the Kobatama competition, held
as a tournament since 1982, from the Indonesian Basketball
Association (Perbasi).

SCTV relaunched it in 1994 as a semipro league. In tandem with
broadcasts of the NBA, a formerly second-rate sport basketball
league has become one of the country's major sports.

The station provides subsidies to each participating team and
to the Perbasi provincial chapter where each match is held --
Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung and Bogor. In an effort to develop
basketball here, SCTV has signed a commitment with Perbasi to
2002 worth hundreds of million of rupiah. The station has also
organized a university basketball league and high school
basketball competition.

ANteve, whose sports scheduling makes up 30 percent of total
weekly programming, provides Rp 2 billion ($143,000) in broadcast
fees through private enterprise to the Indonesian soccer league.

The station's sports producer, Reva Dedy Utama, said that
despite the crisis, ANteve will keep Sunday a sports day by
airing sports-related programs from 12:30 p.m. to 1 a.m, Monday.

ANteve, which won Best Sports Program at the 1997 Asian
Television Awards, expects Ligina to return in October to help
promote the country's national soccer team.

Similar efforts to develop sports are being made by RCTI, with
its indoor soccer and boxing, and Indosiar, which airs live
professional boxing weekly.

If it wasn't for well-established and popular sports like
badminton and lawn tennis, other sports would fail to win the
interest of television stations and would barely survive.

In the current situation, subsidizing local sports seems to be
a better choice for stations than acquiring imported sports
programs. At least, the rights fee and subsidy are set in rupiah.

For the recent World Cup '98, the state TVRI station joined
forces with the five commercial stations to tackle the rights fee
worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and distributed all the
games equally. Each station were entitled to all 64 matches but
only 15 went live on each station.

Other imported live sports events are now facing bleak
prospects. Soccer fans are unlikely to enjoy the foreign leagues
-- the English league (ANteve, SCTV), the Italian league (ANteve,
RCTI), the German and Spanish leagues (ANteve), and the German
and Dutch leagues (TVRI) -- next season due to the rights fees,
which are set in dollars.

If the crisis persists and stations experience further slumps
in their revenues, there will be no future for significant sports
development in the country.

-- The writer works in a private television.