Puerto Rico and open TV

SAN JUAN (William Rosario's Somewhere in the Americas) - Earlier this week Telemundo, Puerto Rico's open TV channel, announced that they will be the official broadcaster of the 2014 FIBA basketball World Cup. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is huge news.

Of course, I am a Puerto Rican that lives in Puerto Rico, so I may be a bit biased, but I've traveled a bit and seen what is the meaning of basketball in other countries and I can be truly objective in re-affirming that this indeed is huge news.

It is always big to have an open TV channel as an official broadcaster, but with Puerto Rico it has a special significance because for those who don't know, basketball and the Caribbean island have longstanding strong ties to each other.

This year, the country's national federation has celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the beginning of organised basketball in Puerto Rico. In that centennial span, a territory with a population of at most four million people has produced sensational talents like Rafael "Tinajon" Feliciano, Arquelio Torres, Juan "Johnny" Baez, Juan "Pachin" Vicens, Raymond Dalmau, Ruben Rodriguez, Federico "Fico" Lopez, Mario "Quijote" Morales, Georgie Torres, Jerome Mincy, Jose "Piculin" Ortiz, Ramon Ramos, Ramon Rivas and more recently Larry Ayuso, Carlos Arroyo and Jose Juan Barea.

There have also been some really important victories in this span, at the highest finishing fourth at the 1990 FIBA World Championship in Argentina in the midst of a two decade run in which they dominated Americas tournaments; and beating the USA at the 2004 Olympics, a win that I don't like to put that much emphasis into, as some ignorant people seem to believe that is when basketball started in the island.

In terms of the love for the game, Puerto Rico has basketball as a priority. There is no doubt about the island being the only country in the Americas in which basketball is the #1 sport and in the world is joined by the likes of Lithuania, Lebanon and Philippines as having it as a national devotion.

All you have to do is move through any city in the island to see courts at full capacity with players of all ages competing against each other. And yes, both baseball and boxing are still important sports in Puerto Rico but they are not played by the casual fan as much as basketball is, and they are not talked about by the general public with such frequency.

The thing is, though, that for this much historical weight, the instances in which basketball has been broadcasted in an open television channel have been far and few between. That has now changed and in a long term plan also.

At the press conference on Tuesday, it was also revealed that the 2014 Centrobasket and the 2015 FIBA Americas Championship will also be broadcasted on the network.

"It has been now proven to be a success for us to broadcast our national team. They are the pride of the island and to have them be seen by everybody seemed like common sense. So we have done it and it is continuation of a big plan for basketball in our airwaves", said Jose Cancela, Telemundo President.

"It started with the 2013 FIBA Americas Championship where the Semi-Final between Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic broke ratings record, only to be broken once again the next day with the Final. We had an unprecedented 40% rating."

More than 60 of the 76 games of the FIBA Basketball World Cup will be broadcast.

For anybody that would be great. But for a country that lives and breathes the sport, to be able to freely and without any obstacle watch the biggest basketball tournament in the world for the first time in 40 years, is incredible.

Now it is up to the national team to stay in play for enough time for the fans to embrace their run in the championship.

"I can guarantee we will be out of the first round," said Carlos Beltran, President of Puerto Rico Basketball Federation at the press conference. "We will be in the Final Wight. After that, we'll leave it up to God".

Mmm, okay. Great.

Aren't those great news about Telemundo?

William Rosario

FIBA Americas

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