Aug. 5, 2008
SportSouth today announced a multi-year television rights agreement with ISP Sports for the exclusive regional cable and satellite rights to University of South Carolina programming. Beginning with the 2008-09 season, SportSouth, which reaches more than nine million cable and satellite households across six states, will be the regional sports network outlet for select University of South Carolina athletic events, as well as The Steve Spurrier Show, The Darrin Horn Show, The Dawn Staley Show and The Ray Tanner Show. SportsSouth will televise a minimum of 73 University of South Carolina athletic events and programs each year:
• Twelve encore presentations of South Carolina football
• Eight live, exclusive men’s basketball games
• Four live, exclusive women’s basketball games
• Eight live, exclusive baseball games
• Thirteen 30-minute episodes of The Steve Spurrier Show (football)
• Fourteen 30-minute episodes of The Darrin Horn Show (men’s basketball)
• Six 30-minute episodes of The Dawn Staley Show (women’s basketball)
• Eight 30-minute episodes of The Ray Tanner Show (baseball)
“SportSouth’s mission is to serve the interests of local sports fans across the Southeast by providing more coverage of their local teams and offering network-quality production values,” said Jeff Genthner, senior vice president and general manager of FSN South and SportSouth. “Our partnership with ISP and the University of South Carolina embodies SportSouth’s commitment to collegiate sports programming. SportSouth is proud to bring Gamecock athletics to more than 1.5 million cable and satellite homes in South Carolina and more than nine million homes across the Southeast.”
“We are excited about this new relationship with SportSouth,” said USC Athletics Director Eric Hyman, “and we look forward to having the larger television footprint that this relationship provides. We have worked diligently to bring the Gamecocks into the homes of more people throughout the state of South Carolina and the entire Southeast, and we appreciate Liz McMillan and the people at ISP for helping to bring this to fruition.”
“Our loyal Gamecock fans across the state of South Carolina and the Southeast have been asking for this type of coverage for many years,” said Liz McMillan, general manager of the Gamecock ISP Sports Network. “We are thrilled to enter into this partnership with SportSouth.”
Each week during the football season, SportSouth will televise The Steve Spurrier Show on Sundays at 11:30 a.m. ET, beginning on Sunday, August 24 with a special season preview edition. SportSouth will televise an encore presentation of the Gamecocks’ season opener against North Carolina State at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday, August 31.
SportSouth, the nation’s six-largest regional sports network, reaches more than nine million cable and satellite homes across a six-state region. FSN South, the nation’s largest regional sports network, reaches more than 12 million cable and satellite homes in seven states in the Southeast. Through its affiliates and other Fox Networks Group-owned networks, FSN reaches more than 70 million homes through 16 owned-and-operated networks. Headquartered in Los Angeles, FSN serves as the television home to more than half of all MLB, NHL and NBA teams based in the United States and produces close to 5,000 live local events each year, including more than 1,600 in high definition.