State Championship games on TV…Maybe???
June 12, 2008 @ 2:04 p.m. by jlongBy J. Long
So a press release was sent out today by the Kansas State High School Activities Association with this statement in bold letters at the top:
Kansas High School Championship Games to be Broadcast on Television
The document was sent out to spread the word about the agreement between local television stations KWCH/KSCW (Wichita), KCTV/KSMO (Kansas City), KTKA (Topeka), and KOAM/KFJK (Pittsburg) and the KSHSAA. What the agreement was exactly didn’t quite jump out at me from the 8.5 x 11, so I gave the numero uno at the KSHSAA, executive director Gary Musselman, a call.
Since this deal was made recently, Musselman didn’t know a lot of specifics, but he did shut down the one part that I “thought” I knew for sure. The part that was boldly labeled in the top of the release.
“Right now we don’t know if or when we will be able to televise the championship games,” Musselman said. “We’d like to be able to broadcast two of the championship games in football and in basketball this year, but I don’t know if that will happen and if it does, we don’t know which ones.”
Musselman and I had a very candid conversation and though I’m not confident that we will see televised state championship contests this year, I do think this was a smart business move for the KSHSAA.
What people often forget is that the KSHSAA isn’t just a governing body for Kansas high school sports. They are in charge of lots of other things and many of those things have nothing to do with sports. Of course you, me and probably everybody but the parents of those non-athletes care more about the sports side, but Musselman and KSHSAA can’t. Musselman told me that the first step in this agreement will probably be having public service announcements appear on TV and online for various KSHSAA items.
If this agreement is done right, and from the convo with Musselman it seems to be headed this way, the students in many of the broadcast/media classes will be putting this and other things together to appear on television or the web. Doing this gives these kids a chance to have a real-world experience in what it takes in this field. I’m a big believer in gaining work experience when you can, so I applaud the association for taking advantage of this opportunity. Will games eventually be aired live? I would think so. The proposal is for three years, so I hope the entities involved would be able to figure out a way to do that at some point.
So maybe we sports fans will have to wait a minute for our needs to be served, but in doing so it seems that these kids will have a great opportunity.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Hopefully this gets done, because it will lead to having all the championship games in one location. It would be hard to televise championship games in 4 or 5 different locations. I’ve lived in 4 other states that have state volleyball, football, basketball & wrestling for all classes in one city, and the championship games are all televised. Get with the times KSHSAA!
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June 12th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
I like the idea of one location for all championship games over a 2 day weekend.
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June 13th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Wow! What a novel concept. Promoting the high school athletes in Kansas on a large scale. Next on the agenda: Getting electricity.
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June 13th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Better late than never,however i will believe it when i see it ! Cueballks said it well !
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June 13th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Hey Cueball, U bringing the coffee tomorrow morning?
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June 14th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I moved down to Oklahoma from Kansas five years ago. Oklahoma has been televising playoff games, plus regular season games every Thursday and Friday night in football and Tuesdays and Fridays in basketball. I guarantee you….it isn’t hurting the kids! High school sports is so much better down here than Kansas…in every sport.
By the way, the Oklahoma HS Activities Association just signed a deal with Fox Sports Southwest to broadcast post season action for the next few years.
Good to see Kansas getting into the 1990’s!
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June 15th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Nebraska broadcasts their state high school championship games on its PBS stations. In Topeka, you can watch WU and ESU games. Makes sense to add high school games to the lineup.
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June 15th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
After seeing the other posts about high school sports airing on PBS, it reminded me that there is a PBS station in western Kansas that broadcast some of the state championships. They are not ESPN quality but they do a decent job and have been doing it for a long time. They air both eight-man football championships and both the boys and girls 1A state basketball championships. They also carry the 3-2-1A state wrestling championships each year live on Friday and Saturday. I’m guessing that this PBS station had some input with the KSHSAA, but I can not believe that they are not listed with the participating TV stations that will be airing them.
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June 16th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Tennessee also televises the football and basketball championships (In football Classes 1A and 2A are Friday night and 3A, 4A, and 5A are Saturday while all three classes of girls basketball is held one week and boys the next). Both events are held in Murfreesboro, a suburb of Nashville that’s pretty much the halfway mark of the state making the travel pretty much even for all the teams except the hometown folks.
I mention all that to say that I think it is a pretty good idea to work on centralizing the championships. While I think ideally it would be best to have both the events here in Wichita, Cessna Stadium isn’t conducive to what would be needed for football. With that said I’d suggest having football at either K-State or Lawrence. It would be a pretty decent revenue builder for either school, not to mention a good way to showcase the campus to prospective students - athletes and other.
It would also be a huge benefit for the fans who could get a chance to watch the best gridiron action this state has to offer all in one weekend.
Same idea for basketball except that could be held here in Wichita. I suggest having the first couple of tournaments at the Kansas Coliseum and then moving it to the new arena once it is completed?
Once again, this is all just a suggestion.
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June 17th, 2008 at 7:54 am
This past wrestling season Cox broadcast the 6A State Wrestling Finals live and then taped a broadcast of the 5A State Wresting Finals which aired the next day. They then re-ran both of these broadcast a few times. I thought it was amazing for the sport of wrestling to have such a professional looking broadcast for our athletes. However, I thought it was even more amazing for Kansas sports overall. We seemed to finally be catching up with the time and giving these young atheletes some recognition that they deserve.
I would love to see the championship games from Emporia in basketball on T.V. Even though I have been there for the past 4 or 5. I would love to watch the State Championship football games.. Even though it would be a lot nicer to watch my falcons win it in person! I would even watch baseball and Track if they broadcast it live. Even though I will probably get talked into working these events as a volunteer by the best athletic director in the world, “Rick Wheeler” ;)
My Point: If advertised correctly, Kansan’s will watch high school sports on T.V. They will record it and re-watch it. I know that is good for sports in Kansas!!!!!
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