CHARLOTTE, NC – ESPNU, the 24-hour college sports network, will televise the April 1 UNC Asheville at Winthrop baseball game from The Winthrop Ballpark and the Radford at Winthrop softball game from Terry Field on Sunday, May 6, it was announced today by Big South Conference Commissioner Kyle Kallander.
The planned telecasts will increase the League’s total appearances on the 2-year-old college sports network to six this season and 10 overall since the Big South and ESPN signed a new five-year partnership in August 2005.
The Radford-Winthrop softball match-up will be the first Big South softball game ever to be televised, and will open a three-game series between the two clubs that will likely shake-up the final standings and seedings for the 2007 Big South Softball Championship that begins May 10 at Coastal Carolina University.
ESPNU is televising a regular-season Big South baseball game for the second consecutive year, as the network aired two ballgames in 2006. It also will be the third-straight year that Big South baseball will be televised.
ESPNU was launched in March 2005. The network features extensive studio programming and live coverage of games, including college football, college basketball and other Olympic sports from over 20 Division I conferences such as the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Atlantic 10, Big 12, BIG EAST, Big South, Big Ten, Horizon League, Mid-American Conference, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), Missouri Valley Conference (MVC), Ohio Valley Conference (OVC), Patriot League, Southland, Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) and more. In addition, the network has a wide-ranging, long-term agreement with the NCAA calling for enhanced coverage of 22 NCAA Championships, showcasing sports from each of the three collegiate seasons. ESPNU also has exclusive re-air rights to games on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Regional television programming.
In addition, ESPNU.com, the companion to the ESPNU college sports television network, is the online destination for college sports content, including news, information, extensive online video and audio and more.
ESPNU has secured distribution agreements with Charter, Cox, DIRECTV (Channel 609), Echostar’s DISH Network (Channel 148), Insight Communications, Mediacom, Verizon, several smaller affiliates and is close to distribution agreements with others.
Meanwhile, the Big South and its member institutions will also provide live video streaming of its Conference and non-Conference games throughout the spring season on the League’s premium content website, The Big South EDGE presented by Aéropostale. Video streams are available via www.BigSouthSports.com and is available on a subscription basis.
