Radio listeners to get TV audio


By Eric Maddy
The SCORE

Tough economic times have hit the local sports world as well, as Saturday's New Mexico Bowl game between Colorado State and Fresno State won't have an original radio broadcast from University Stadium in Albuquerque.

Instead, ESPN Radio will pick up the television commentary of the game and broadcast it on radio, bowl executive director Jeff Siembieda said Thursday. The game will air on 610-AM The Sports Animal starting at noon, assistant program director Michael Carlyle said.

Rae Ann McKernan said ESPN was making the move in an effort to save money and is using the TV audio at other bowl games this year.

ESPN actually “owns” and operates  several bowls, including the New Mexico, Armed Forces, Hawaii, Las Vegas,  Papajohn’s.com and St. Petersburg Bowls. As part of the ownership package ESPN has the national television and radio broadcast rights to the game.

Stations from the schools participating, such as Colorado State and Fresno State, are allowed to carry the game on the stations they use during the regular season. But there is no exception to broadcast the game in the area where the game is played, so when ESPN decided not to send a separate radio team to the game there was no option for a local station to broadcast.

Joe O’Neill, president of the new Rio Rancho-based sports talk radio station 101.7 The Team, said his station would have been interested in doing an original broadcast of the game but he was not surprised the option was not available to his station. The Team is affiliated with FOX Sports Radio, the primary competitor of ESPN.

The Sports Animal, owned by Citadel Communications, is an ESPN affiliate. KKOB-AM, which broadcasts University of New Mexico games, is also owned by Citadel.

Carlyle said an average listener probably won’t notice the difference between a radio-based and television-based game.

“The only issue I could think of would be if there was some close out-of-bounds play, maybe a debate on a catch, and they went to a replay several times,” he said. “When that happens on a radio broadcast, the radio broadcasters are looking at the replay on a big screen or they have monitors.”

Another broadcaster, who asked not to be named, disagreed.

“For those people who are listening to something when they are out driving around, it will certainly be better than nothing,” he said. “But from the strategy of the broadcast, there’s a lot of difference between a TV game and a radio game. On TV you’re taught to say as little as possible and let the pictures tell the story.”

A message left with the ESPN media relations department was not returned.