Courtesy The Jambar

(October 14, 2009) A mutual announcement made in early September by Youngstown State University Associate Director of Athletics Rick Love and Vice-President/Market Manager of Clear Channel Radio Youngstown William E. Kelly Jr. will allow for an already great relationship to further grow, Love said.

"[Clear Channel have] been phenomenal partners. They've done programming above and beyond what's called for in the contract and the promotional opportunities that they've provided to the department and the university, and we just felt that we needed to extend it," Love said.

The extension will now continue through 2013 and will allow Penguin fans from all over the surrounding area including Northeast Ohio, western Pennsylvania and portions of New York to continue to listen to numerous YSU sporting events including football, men's and women's basketball and special programming events such as the "Penguin Playbook Coaches Show," featuring head football coach Jon Heacock, men's basketball head coach Jerry Slocum and women's head coach Cindy Martin. Other special event programming includes the "Football Tailgate Show" and "The Fifth Quarter Show."

Love said 570 WKBN would only be responsible for the broadcasts of football and basketball because of scheduling conflicts, but that other sports such as baseball, softball, track & field, cross-country, swimming, tennis, golf, volleyball and soccer are available to listen to live on http://www.ysusports.com.

"There's certain things that you can't do … [the athletic department] made a concentrated effort last year to do soccer here live on the Internet where you can actually watch the game itself," Love said. "We're working with our telecommunications department here at YSU and we had two interns last year that did all of our home baseball and softball games with Web-audio broadcasts."

Love said that any and all preseason matchups such as the Red/White scrimmage each spring and all tournament games would also be a part of the broadcasts.

Sports Information Director Trevor Parks said other ideas that could be recognized for the future include additional broadcasts featuring Athletic Director Ron Strollo, which could be used as a promotion tool.

"Add that show that they had with Ron on Sept. 3, which was an idea where we called [570 WKBN] up and said 'Hey let's do that,'" Parks said. "That's actually something I would like to see us do a little bit more … try to get him on and just talk about what we're doing around here and talk about some plans that we have and plans that we might have to adjust."

Assistant Athletic Director/Marketing & Promotions Robb Schmidt said 570 WKBN gives YSU opportunities to explain all of the upcoming promotions that the athletic department and university are offering.

"It's a vehicle to promote not only your athletic department but your university," Schmidt said. "We're getting an hour of airtime on a top five station in the market, so we're able to promote what we're doing for each upcoming home game, give the fans an idea of what we're offering for each upcoming game and for the game itself, the broadcast is already from a two to three hour commercial."

Schmidt said each block of airtime costs practically nothing for YSU and 570 WKBN through the agreement.

"It's an avenue of revenue for us and for Clear Channel; to find that opportunity on a top five station, I couldn't even gauge how much money that equates to," Schmidt said.

Dave Sess, Dick Hartzell and Bob Hannon all will rejoin as the voices for the football program, while Schmidt and Clear Channel Sports Director Jim Campbell can be heard during all men's and women's basketball broadcasts.

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