June 2, 2008
South Carolina Athletics has a fulltime radio home for football, men’s basketball and baseball.
University athletics officials and ISP Sports, the multimedia rights holder for the Gamecocks, have announced a new five-year agreement with Citadel Broadcasting that makes WNKT-FM (107.5 “The Game”) the official flagship station for the Gamecock ISP Sports Radio Network beginning this August.
Programming covered in the agreement includes live play-by-play broadcasts of football, men’s basketball and baseball, as well as a weekly 60-minute coaches’ call-in show during football and basketball seasons and a new hour-long “USC Athletics Show” that will air weekly 10 months (August through May) during the year.
Additionally, Gamecock women’s basketball will have a permanent home on Citadel’s WISW-AM which provides coverage throughout the metro Columbia area with a 5,000-watt AM signal.
Carolina Athletics Director Eric Hyman said, “We are very pleased to continue our relationship with Bill McElveen and his staff in providing excellent radio coverage of Gamecock Athletics. We are also appreciative of the efforts of Liz McMillan and the ISP staff in securing this partnership.”
Citadel Broadcasting’s Bill McElveen was also pleased with the new partnership.
“We’re delighted to be continuing our partnership with the University of South Carolina Athletics Department and ISP,” said McElveen. “As Eric Hyman has said, Gamecock Athletics is all about being great, not good, and being able to broadcast Gamecock sports on the state’s premier all-sports station 107.5 ‘The Game’ is further evidence of USC’s commitment to excellence.”
In addition to the live play-by-play broadcasts and weekly shows, “The Game” will also carry an expanded three-hour pre-game show prior to all Gamecock football games, followed by a 90-minute postgame show. Men’s basketball broadcasts will be complemented by 30-minute pre-game and postgame programming as well.
“We are excited to continue our partnership with Citadel Broadcasting,” Liz McMillan, general manager of the Gamecock ISP Sports Network, said. “We have had a highly professional relationship with Brent Johnson and his staff in the past and are thrilled that our programming will now be centralized primarily on one station.”
In the event that Gamecock teams included in the agreement are competing at the same time, Citadel will provide an alternative broadcast site on WISW, but every effort will be made to keep USC programming on the flagship station.
