[E.ridge]

i think it's a sham that they wont cover some local teams like belfry or phelps or east ridge or pike central three local teams is playing at phelps tonight and they wont cover it (east ridge/phelps/belfry)!!!! but what if it was shelby valley playing over there???? they would cover them no matter where they play at. i think you shouldent focus more on one team than you do the other
JMO.

[Panther Thunder]

I think you should focus in English class.

[E.ridge]

you would hate if i told you what i think you should focus on.

[jammin' jamey]

E. Ridge...

There were several games today involving teams that our stations try to cover including Pikeville, Pike Central, Allen Central, South Floyd, Prestonsburg just to name a few. We were unable to follow those teams to various places whether it was Kenton County or Raceland due to lack of sponsorship dollars.

The Marty Casey Tournament is a fine idea and became a reality after the Massey Invitational Tournament fell off due to lack of dollars from a corporate standpoint. Massey, along with other sponsors, made complete coverage of that tournament possible on our stations. The Marty Casey Tournament doesn't have a corporate sponsor, so it's up to our staff to find sponsors for coverage, unfortunately we are only able to pick a "game of the week" to feature the East Ridge/Belfry matchup on our stations weather permitting. I just hope you understand that from a sponsorship standpoint.

Shelby Valley had a special squad the past couple of seasons which allowed complete coverage of their games whether it was in Florida or on Robinson Creek. Local small businesses made coverage possible and we can't thank them enough!

Speak to your community business owners about sponsorship of games. We currently are trying to find sponsors to feature Pike Central/East Ridge games on 107.5 ZROCK. Please remember that there was a point back during this past regular season of football where we featured every single Pike County school on our stations on the same Friday night. As a matter of fact, it happened twice and we even covered a Floyd County school on the same evening. To be honest, sponsorship for football has grown over the past few years to the point where we even regularly cover Prestonsburg and other Floyd County schools. The interest in basketball however has fallen off. Reasons? There are plenty: not enough home games because everyone wants tournaments at 4:00 in the afternoon which keeps crowds down because working people cannot attend, district games (in Pike County at least) have no real value and neither do district tournaments in Pike County anymore and weather factors in with rescheduling.

Finally, I believe consolidation has hurt the game of basketball because communities don't have that hometown team anymore to rally around...yet those same small communities (for example Millard and Feds Creek) can rally around football now because more kids can be involved which in turn creates more interest and better crowds...plus there are less games/tournaments/bowls which makes going out for a home game or traveling a bigger deal than in basketball. The aforementioned schools were too small to field football squads before. Consolidation has helped the game of football and is causing a slow death to the game of basketball.

I hope this tries to show you that EKB is not partial to a particular school, yet we have to make decisions to focus on schools with a strong sponsorship backing to make the process work.

[E.ridge]

alright . thanks good post

[jammin' jamey]

No problem...The weather as of late has really hurt us being able to schedule games. This week I'm going to try to cover the Sheldon Clark/Williamson contest tomorrow and Knott Central/Betsy Layne game. We are also doing the East Ridge/Belfry game and Tug Valley's game later this week as well. Hopefully things will turn in the right direction...

[E.ridge]

good i hope the weather gets better!! what games are you gonna try to attend tomorrow?

[d2hoopsfan]

I hope this tries to show you that EKB is not partial to a particular school, yet we have to make decisions to focus on schools with a strong sponsorship backing to make the process work.

You could do like the sports station in Knoxville did for football. They used to have a "game of the week" and they had trouble finding sponsors except when certain teams played or those teams played each other.

So before the 2008 season they sent all the schools in the area a letter saying they would either do a reduced game of the week schedule or, if one school wants to pony up the cash, they would just cover that school. Needless to say, Knoxville Catholic (which actually was one of the schools the station never had a problem getting sponsors for) outbid 5 other schools. And the deal comes up for renewal every year and Catholic has paid more to keep it.

Smart move by the station as Catholic shells out money, then the station gets an "official so-and-so of Catholic football" sponsor or two (more money) and then gets "regular" sponsors on top of that. :1:

Of course, this is only for football. This station wouldn't touch high school basketball with a 10 foot pole. (Although, to be fair, they are one of the outlets for Tennessee sports, usually the Lady Vols.)

Not really suggesting that this gets done in EKY, just pointing out what others have done in a similar situation.:Thumbs:

[jammin' jamey]

d2hoopsfan...Thanks for the suggestion. We are doing a "game of the week" on our stations, yet as I said earlier, sponsorship for basketball is not as strong as football was this season or has been the past several seasons. The idea of selling the rights of a school to a particular station is also done in Louisville between two stations to carry Trinity and St. X games exclusively. One problem though is most all schools here in our area are public schools and can't appropriate sponsorship money into a particular radio station, although it is a novel idea and would serve the schools and community well.

Just for the record, here's a breakdown of EKB Sports coverage of area teams and where to find their "best" games this season:

98.1/1240/1460 - Pikeville Panthers
103.1 - Shelby Valley Wildcats
107.5 - East Ridge/Pike Central
96.5 - Belfry/Tug Valley and the best WVA matchups
1400 - Williamson Wolfpack
104.5/960/900 - Allen Central, Betsy Layne, Prestonsburg & South Floyd
93.1 - "15th region game of the week"