(the following appeared in the Saturday March 29 Bangor Daily News Sounding
Off Column)
 
AWARDING OF ALL UM GAMES TO SINGLE RADIO STATION TOUGH ON FANS
 
Friday's announcement that the University of Maine has awarded WZON
exclusive radio broadcast rights for Black Bear sports should be disturbing
to fans ot UMaine athletics.
 
It appears to be a great coup for The Zone Corp., owned by Stephen King.
The stations (WZON-AM and WKIT-FM) now hold the rights to UMaine football,
women's basketball and baseball in addition to the hockey and men's
basketball coverage it already provided.
 
While WZON has done a commendable job in its live coverage of local sports,
including UMaine, the station has only bought itself more trouble.
 
Last winter, "The Sports Zone" had the rights to hockey and men's hoop.
Even that created several scheduling conflicts between the sports for WZON,
which also airs some Bruins and Celtics games.
 
UMaine hockey, presumably because of its large following, took precedence
over men's basketball.  Basketball games were either joined in progress or
covered by way of periodic live updates during whatever other game the
station had on.
 
Thus men's basketball fans were already having trouble following the Black
Bear men consistently on the radio.
 
Now, try to imagine WZON juggling its coverage of the UMaine hockey team
and its resurgence toward the NCAA Tournament next winter while also
satisfying the growing legion of Black Bear women's basketball fans and the
core of UMaine men's fans.  It's impossible.
 
Many of those games will be played on the same day at the same time, which
will force WZON to make  a tough choices [sic].  The contest that is likely
to wind up on the air, of course, is the one the station's salespeople have
best been able to sell to local advertisers.
 
UMaine fans don't care a lick about who's advertising.  They want to hear
the games.
 
However, the blame here rests with the university not with "The Sports Zone."
 
UMaine officials say no other stations submitted proposals to broadcast
Black Bear sports.  That's a cop-out.
 
The university should have actively solicited other bids, marketing its
athletic programs to local stations in an attempt to provide maximum
coverage of UMaine sports on the radio.
 
In failing to seek a more balanced approach at broadcasting UMaine sports
on the radio, the university is hurting itself and Black Bear fans, not to
mention putting WZON between a rock and hard place.
 
The university's exposure will be reduced because of scheduling conflicts,
UMaine fans will get gypped out of games they want to hear and WZON will be
forced to take the complaint calls.
 
There has to be a better way.
 
-- Pete Warner, BDN