IMG, JOURNAL PARTNER TO CREATE ARIZONA WILDCAT SPORTS
NETWORK

After weeks of negotiations, the University of Arizona finalized a
television broadcast deal for football and men’s basketball games.

IMG (the company that brokers the UA’s media-broadcast
packages) and Journal Broadcast Group agreed to form the
Arizona Wildcat Sports Network.

“This partnership between the University of Arizona and Journal
Broadcast Group helps us fulfill the commitment we made to be the best
local broadcast company serving Tucson,” said Journal Tucson general
manager Julie Brinks in a story on Journal-owned KGUN Channel
9.

The deal this season will include at least two football games: The
season opener, at home against Central Michigan (Sept. 5), and the
second home game, against Northern Arizona University, the following
weekend.

Those games, and at least 13 men’s basketball games, are scheduled
to be broadcast live on KWBA Channel 58/Cable Channel 8,
Journal’s CW network affiliate, and tape-delayed on KGUN.

While neither side released contract particulars, it’s likely that
Journal can more easily readjust its network programming deal with the
CW; pre-empting ABC primetime programming would be more
problematic.

Games will also be broadcast on 58.2, KWBA’s Spanish-language
digital subchannel, and throughout the state on KSAZ Channel 7/Cable
Channel 13, which, while licensed in Prescott, has a strong
presence in Phoenix.

Through the deal, the TV stations will pay for the opportunity to
carry the games, while IMG will sell the advertising and pay for
production of the broadcasts. According to sources familiar with the
IMG pitch, four production outlets, one local, have placed bids to
produce the broadcasts, which could run anywhere from $15,000 to
$40,000 per game.

IMG and Journal came to terms after efforts to renew the UA’s deal
with Fox Sports Arizona fell through. Fox trimmed its
involvement with UA athletics seemingly every year, focusing more and
more on Phoenix-based sports, highlighted by its 75-game deal with the
Arizona Diamondbacks. The network is still under contract with Arizona
State to broadcast Sun Devil games.

One telling aspect of Fox’s waning interest in the UA involves its
production agreement with Sean Mooney‘s Moonrise
Productions, which put together a number of programs as a
complement to Wildcat games. Mooney’s Wildcat Rewind shows were reduced by two-thirds from the beginning to the end of the
deal—and Fox Sports had decided to cut Mooney out of the picture
entirely this season.

Insiders also say that Fox Sports had difficulty getting a
legitimate viewing read on advertising in Tucson, because it isn’t yet
a metered market. In Phoenix, television-viewing habits can be made
available the next day. Tucson does not have that luxury—and,
therefore, brokering advertising rates becomes a trickier
undertaking.

The problem for IMG was wooing a television outlet that could find
the airtime to broadcast games live. In the days of three networks,
that was easier to do, but with the addition of networks such as Fox,
the CW and myNetworkTV, the independent-TV model is all but extinct.
Affiliates, meanwhile, generally have contractual obligations to play
the primetime lineup during primetime.

The deal is certainly a good one for Journal. It gives the
organization a public-relations boost and allows the outlet an
opportunity to pitch other programming on KWBA, which often struggles
in the ratings.

The television package also includes The Mike Stoops Show,
The Sean Miller Show, seven magazine shows (similar to Mooney’s
Wildcat Rewind programs) and the option of broadcasting other
athletic events such as volleyball and softball games.

“The cable penetration in the marketplace is only 55 percent, so
that leaves 45 percent of the folks who weren’t even able to receive
the games in the past, so this brings it back to the local community,”
said Brinks in the KGUN story—incidentally, citing numbers that
are only partially true. An estimated 55 percent of the Tucson market
has cable, but Fox Sports Arizona is also available on satellite, so
when that is incorporated into the equation, actual FSN market
penetration in Tucson area households could come closer to 90
percent.

“We feel from research this is one of the first-of-its-kind
over-the-air networks,” said IMG’s Brent Seebohm (who did not
respond to Tucson Weekly interview requests by deadline) in the
KGUN story. “Other athletic programs are aligned with regional sports
networks and cable systems, but this is a new trendsetter-type
direction.”

There are those who would argue that this trend is not beneficial for the overall well-being of UA sports. For Wildcat fans
who live in Arizona, the deal is certainly positive, but there are
concerns that the agreement could be detrimental to UA recruiting.
Arizona does much of its recruiting in places like California and
Texas, and thanks to Fox Sports, many of those games could be available
for viewing—but satellite and cable-sports packages won’t include
the Wildcat Sports Network. The detractors’ thought process: If a
recruit’s family members don’t have consistent access to the product,
it might be a better fit for a prospect to attend a school with a more
traditional on-air package.

The real impact of that, of course, won’t be determined for
years.

The IMG deal also includes an online subscription service, meaning
games can be viewed for a fee via the university’s Web site.

JOLT OWNER PASSES AWAY

Aldona Sprei, the owner of KJLL AM 1330, passed away
last week from complications relating to a lengthy illness.

Sprei purchased the Jolt nearly 12 years ago, and it remains one of
the market’s rare stand-alone radio operations.

“I decided to go with a news/talk format, because at the time, there
was only one station that offered it, and that was KNST,” said
Sprei in an interview with the Tucson Weekly in November 2007,
while the station was celebrating its 10th anniversary. “We were the
second one that came into the market. I wanted something that was an
alternative, something that was a choice, because there wasn’t a choice
at that time. We weren’t a part of a big ownership group, so we went
with being local and trying to be the pulse of the community.”

This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2009.