"Camera´s Other Side"

SAN SEBASTIAN, August 12--- In today´s Berria, the only newspaper entirely published in the basque language, there is an interesting interview with different members of Master Jai Producciones staff, the only jai-alai production company. According to Berria´s journalist, Imanol Magro, television has supposed a revolution in today´s world of pelota. The cathodic dictactorship has drastically changed customs and traditions involved with the sport (he means hanball, pelota a mano, when talking about pelota). Fronton´s color, time schedule, season programation, all have been conditioned by television´s demand.

(....) "Handball, pelota a mano, companies in the Basque Country have succulents contracts with ETB (Public Basque Television) and Tele 5, the rest of pelota modalities get almost none, leftovers. For companies like Master Jai the only choice to get acces to television space was to create its own production company.".

(...) "To create our own production company was not a mere caprice; it´s been a real necessity, a must. Nowadays, there is not jai-alai business without television",
Company´s President, A. Totorika, said.

Last year Jai aive, the other jai-alai company that operates in the Basque Country, sued Master Jai. According to Jai Alive, Totorika´s company was monopolizing jai-alai business with the complicity of ETB Basque television. After a year of legal fighting, the court of justice obliged ETB to give Jai Alive same treatment as Master Jai was geting.
As a consequence, Totorika decided to become a producer. His company has invested so far 900.000 euros for equipment and a studio. It´s been eight months since they started producing over 200 programs, more than 100 partidos and debates and documentaries and interviews.

(...) "Without television presence jai-alai as business is not possible", Totorika said. "To make it clear, jai-alai´s future depends on our capacity to obtain television presence". Mikel Plaza, Master Jai Producciones´vicepresident, said, "when we negotiate jai-alai festivals, especially with French-Basque fronton owners, first thing they ask you is if you have television; next, they ask you what kind of players you have".
Master Jai produces a debate and one partido a week. Those programs can be sintonized in two local televisions: Bilbovision and Teledonosti. Partido games they produced can be followed as well on France´s Canal Plus. Eurosport offers two partidos twice a year. According to Juanma Sanchez, Master Jai Producciones´ Chief, the quality of or retransmisions is getting better. In six months they have fulfilled Canal Plus and Eurosport quality standars. Sanchez said, "the concept of jai-alai is very global. Not just partidos, we offer documentaries based on jai-alai, over 40 so far. On the digital technological level, we are planning on associating with some cable television network"...
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A couple of days ago, Craig G posted a reply on Tiger´s Chalk Talk to my "Jai-Alai Needs Salesmen" article. Craig wrote, "I think your desire to have jai-alai on famous networks all over the world is both unrealistic and unnecessary". He continues, " People are watching more and more video over the internet, whether live, replayed or YouTube-style. That is the future".
After reading Craig G´s opinion I let my mind range. What´s wong with networks all over the world showing jai-alai games?
Are not television and the internet and YouTube compatible, all of them? Nowadays, can you obtain enough income from the internet and YouTube to pay the players and the rest of employees?...
"Since the partido was already being streamed at a very good quality, all you really need now is the publicity part", Craig g wrote. And I wonder, where you get the sponsors, who are they, do you make enough money out of it in order to make businees succesful?
As I said it before, Jai-Alai needs first class opinions like Craig´s fresh ideas. Who knows if in ten or fifteen years the way things are changing paradigmas will be changed and instead of listening Totorika talking about television he has to change his mind and talk about the internet or YouTube, or about some kind of multimedia mix.
Craig G´s opinion about the need of "Part of "publicity" is to have first class commentators or analysts predicting, covering and summarizing the match". I agree a hundred percent. Unfortunally there are not good enough jai-alai commentators. And I would go further, you wont even find any, at least here in the Basque Country. The answer to such a lack is an easy one, the good ones are doing their job covering mass sports, the ones where you get the money.