It was a little late, but Santa’s gift for me this past Holiday season was simply perfect, as two of my least favorite sportswriters, Ronnie Nathanielsz and Quinito Henson, took passive-aggressive shots at each other in a series of columns about the comparative television ratings of the Philippine football team matches and PBA games.

Nathanielsz kicked off stupidities with his report that the first Azkal semifinals game broadcast by Studio 23 (with him as the lead anchor, something he fails to mention in his story) rated better than the previous day’s PBA game, an elimination round game featuring Meralco vs. Rain or Shine. In a follow-up, Nathanielsz wrote that the second Azkals game on Studio 23 brought in higher ratings than the Air 21-San Miguel quarterfinals game that aired that same evening, although the football match still failed to garner as many viewers as that week’s quarterfinals match between Alaska and Barangay Ginebra.

The former Marcos lackey’s series of stories seemed to light a fire under Quinito, who came out swinging in a column. He called Nathanielsz’ articles “a crass display of news manipulation to promote a hidden agenda,” which was to embarrass the PBA and its broadcast partner, Solar Sports. Nathanielsz defended his stories and denied Quinito’s accusation.

Of course, no one really believes Nathanielsz. In what must be a first for this blog, I am totally on Quinito’s side here. The point of the articles was to build up ABS-CBN as the PBA’s new broadcasting partner, something that Nathanielsz has been lobbying for several years now. In these stories, he never seems to mention his chummy relationship with ABS-CBN Sports’ top brass or his connection to the broadcasts.

Three years ago, Solar Sports and ABS-CBN competed for the television rights to broadcast the PBA games. The league board chose Solar not only because of a bigger financial package, but also because it demonstrated industry reports that its VHF carrier, RPN-9, had a bigger reach than ABS-CBN’s Studio 23, a UHF channel.

Jude Turcuato, who was then head of marketing for Solar Sports, wrote about it on his blog:

Solar used actual AGB Nielsen ratings from the last 3 years which showed that RPN has better reach and ratings than Studio 23. Overall, GMA is the clear leader with ABS in 2nd place. QTV is in 3rd while ABC and RPN have been contesting the 4th spot all year. Studio 23 at the time of the presentation was actually in 7th place behind the combination of all cable channels. The latest numbers from early May had RPN in 4th place with the NBA playoffs in full swing and Studio 23 still in 7th behind the combination of all cable channels.

The board commissioned AC Nielsen to do a study in reach. RPN was ahead of Studio 23 in Megamanila while the opposite was true in the provinces. But overall combined, RPN was higher. In fact, based on the surveys, Studio 23 reach in Megamanila was lower than ALL the VHF channels ABC, NBN, ABC, RPN, IBC, QTV and of course ch2 and ch7. It was a glaring advantage that made a difference in actual reach and ratings.

In his series on TV ratings, Nathanielsz is saying that all these data presented to the PBA board was bullshit, and the results of the games he cited proved that RPN-9 doesn’t have a bigger reach than Studio 23.

But is that really the case?

The problem with Nathanielsz’ series on TV ratings is that he leaves out a very important part of the story: context.

Sure, Solar Sports has done a terrible job at promoting the PBA, and they really haven’t done a good job since Turcuato and a bunch of other people left the company a couple of years back.

But the real reason that the PBA games handpicked by Nathanielsz didn’t rate well is because they weren’t particularly meaningful; the Meralco-Rain or Shine game was a matchup of two teams with miniscule fanbases, while the San Miguel-Air 21 game was a laugher. It’s understandable why these games wouldn’t draw in viewers.

On the other hand, the Azkals’ first game against Indonesia was, quite literally, THE MOST IMPORTANT MATCH IN PHILIPPINE FOOTBALL HISTORY. The hype was crazy; not only were the newspapers, news sites, blogs, and social media sites covering the team extensively, both of the big primetime news programs featured nightly reports on the team. Simon McMenemy went to use the bathroom? TJ Manotoc is there on the scene. Phil Younghusband is wearing good luck briefs to the game? Chino Trinidad has a report. Studio 23 had everyone promoting the game on their behalf.

So you’ve got THE MOST IMPORTANT MATCH IN PHILIPPINE FOOTBALL HISTORY with all the hype, and you can’t even beat a PBA quarterfinals game featuring Ginebra?

Maybe Filipinos aren’t ready for football yet. But more probably, you’re airing it on a shitty channel that has terrible reach.