[Stardust]

http://nky.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/...302170058/

If you plan on following your favorite Northern Kentucky high school basketball team through the Ninth and 10th Region tournaments at the Bank of Kentucky Center next month, you better buy a ticket.

That’s the message arena officials sent Tuesday when they released first-of-their-kind restrictions on the tournaments’ radio, television and Internet coverage.

According to a release, “In order to ensure and maximize the funds to each participating school … participating schools that reside outside a 30-mile radius from the Center will be given the opportunity to broadcast (via radio only) their respective school’s games. Should any of the Ninth or 10th region games individually sell-out, one week prior to date of play, the Center will allow for that game to be broadcast via radio, Internet and/or television.”

If either of those two criteria isn’t met, the only way to follow games will be live and in-person. The BOKC, in its first season hosting high school games, is the first regional site in the state to institute such restrictions.

For radio duo Kevin Rengering and Randy Wilson of KR Sports, the new policy means it will miss broadcasting the Ninth Region tournament for the first time since 1984.


“It’s a farce,” Rengering said. “It’s not an ego thing for us. We’ve been doing it for 25 years. But we have a considerable audience of people who are, for lack of a better term, shut-ins. They just can’t get to the games.


“… I know (organizers) think it will take away from the gate, but I don’t think it will.”
BOKC officials, who last year agreed to a three-year renewable contract with the Ninth Region and a one-year deal with the 10th Region, wouldn’t comment on the policy.............