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| R.I.P. Dan Beebe's Big XII conference |
UTSA, Clear Channel reach football broadcast agreement [GoUTSA.com]
The UTSA Athletics Department announced Thursday that it has reached a multi-year agreement with Clear Channel Communications, Inc., to broadcast all 10 football games and a weekly coach’s show as part of the Roadrunners Sports Network during the inaugural season.
Andy Everett, co-host of “The Morning Drive” on Ticket 760 AM and the voice of the UTSA men’s basketball team since 2007, will be the play-by-play announcer, while Ed Suarez will handle color commentary.
All 10 game broadcasts will feature two-hour pregame and one-hour postgame shows and will be carried live in the San Antonio area on KRPT-FM 92.5 The Patriot. All games also will be streamed for free online at goUTSA.comand on 925thepatriot.com.
The hype machine continues to roll. It's great to see how strongly the local media has embraced UTSA athletics in the past two years. The Ticket 760 has steadily increased their coverage of the Roadrunners with pre and post game shows for basketball as well as general UTSA banter on The Morning Drive and other shows (shout outs to Andy Everett and Peter Burns for catalyzing that). Kens5 and WOAI have been showing mad love to UTSA as well, specifically during our NCAA tournament run and after the Fiesta Spring game. This Clear Channel football agreement is one more step towards cementing UTSA as San Antonio's team. The show at Stonewerks is a really cool idea, hopefully that will be a video stream. If you ever want to buy Larry Coker a beer, you now know where to find him.
Everett also will host a weekly show with head coach Larry Coker, which will air live from Stonewerks Big Rock Grille at The Rim on Ticket 760 AM from 7-8 p.m. each Wednesday during the season beginning on August 31.
Season ticket sales outlook [utsafootball.wordpress.com]
Very interesting look at UTSA's pace of season ticket sales. If UTSA's rate of sales is sustainable, we're looking at numbers that will put us in the midst of MWC and CUSA peers (11-12k). Come at us, bros. Click the link para más.
UTSA notebook: ticket sales, facility update and more - Dan McCarney [mysa.com]
Huge update from our boy Dan McCarney who is also finally on twitter, well sort of at least.
So evidently a lot of people in the front office truly believe that a full Alamodome sell out is possible. I don't know what kind of last-push marketing effort the Athletics Department has brain stormed but I highly doubt 65k tickets will be individually purchased. Now if a booster or group of boosters buys a couple ten thousand tickets and donate them to service members and under-privileged school children as I've heard rumored, then that is a very different story, and a very awesome one at that. Can't wait to see how this ends up.
At the top of the list being said ticket sales, which are at 9,603 for season packages as of Thursday afternoon. Altogether — season, single game, student, etc. – the Roadrunners have reserved or sold roughly 38,000 tickets with roughly three weeks until the opener against Northeatern State on Sept. 3.That’s 27,000 away from a sell-out, but it sounds like the Roadrunners are going to redouble their efforts in order to at least make a run at the modern start-up record of 49,212, set by South Florida in 1997.Notice I wrote, “at least.”
Dan also took a semi-in depth look at the facility problems that we've discussed before. I'm willing to bet that a booster does in fact step up to the plate. Incarnate Word got a huge donation from Saints owner Tom Benson, and I have a sneaking suspicion that another local multi-millionaire car dealer that has been a big proponent of UTSA football will one-up his competition and toss a few stacks Lynn Hickey's way. Here's to you, Red McCombs
Just today, Roadrunners officials finally squeezed costs for the initial phase, which also includes about $5 million in infrastructure work (roads, parking lots, electricity, etc.), under the $22.05 budget. As of now, there are no funds available to build what the Roadrunners need most, a practice facility for their new football team.A conservative estimate by associate athletic director Brad Parrott pegged the cost for two practice fields and a football building (which would include locker rooms, training rooms and meeting space for a full 105-member squad) at about $11.5 million. And barring a huge upswing in donations, that’s about $11.5 million the Roadrunners don’t have at the moment.
No firm dates yet, but UTSA has received the general slate for its upcoming WAC schedules: In even years, home against Texas State, Utah State and San Jose State, on the road against Idaho, New Mexico State and Louisiana Tech. Vice versa for odd years.Meh. Louisiana Tech and Idaho are the two best teams in the WAC come 2012; would have loved to catch them hungover from the Riverwalk in year one. On the plus side, the road trip to Ruston is going to be sweet. Them boys know how to tailgate.
HUGE thanks to everyone that has listened to our first podcast episode. If you haven't heard it yet, you can find it here. We're excited to ramp up the quality of this puppy and get some sexy guests on the show. Next week we'll be primarily discussing conference expansion, it could get ugly.
Oh, one more thing. UTSA kick off after party.
