Courtesy the Corsicana Daily Sun

(December 1, 2010) On Sunday, when the National Junior College Football Championship will be played in the Citizens Bank Bowl between No. 1-ranked Butler Community College and No. 2-ranked Navarro College, the radio commentators won’t be from either team’s home town. Instead, they’ll be from Pittsburg, Kan., where the bowl game will be played.

It’s part of an exclusivity deal with KSEK in Pittsburg, explained Mark Krug, director of sports information and media relations with the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA).

“It is (unusual). I haven’t run into it before,” Krug said. “But our interest at the NJCAA is to provide a good atmosphere and setting for these games to continue year in and year out. This committee said they feel it’s necessary for them to continue doing this.”

Even though The Ranch in Corsicana and KNSS in Butler won’t be able to provide their own color commentary for the game, both towns will receive it through a feed from KSEK. The Ranch, FM 106.9, in Corsicana, has paid $500 for the rights to air the game, said General Manager Mike Crow.

“I am disappointed that our broadcast team was not allowed to broadcast this important game,” Crow said in a prepared statement. “Tim Samuels and Steve Petty have done a fantastic job this year with the play-by-play. What has transpired in Kansas was underhanded, unprofessional and completely unnecessary. This situation has dealt us a severe setback and has cost us sponsorships. Our major sponsor has pulled out, and we are scrambling now to cover our costs for the year and this game.”

Still, the radio station doesn’t want to disappoint fans, so it will broadcast even without a Navarro commentary or sponsors, Crow said.

“To not continue through with this bowl game would be an even bigger disappointment, so we will go forward without sponsorships if we have to, and bring the play-by-play to Navarro Bulldog fans via this pirate feed from Kansas,” he stated.

In an interview, Crow said he has some trepidation about using another station’s broadcast, but he doesn’t have a choice.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “I don’t even know the broadcasters that are coming over my airwaves, it could be Mickey Mouse and Pluto. But the fans deserve to hear the Bulldogs over the air and we’ll do it without sponsors if that’s what it takes.”

The radio station in Butler will also pay to have a live radio feed from KSEK, said J.D. Ettore, bowl director.

Ettore is the bowl director, and the athletic director for Fort Scott Community College. The radio station that won the bid, KSEK, is the official radio station for Fort Scott Community College.

“Fans in both markets will have a radio station if they’re not able to come up for the game,” Ettore said. “They can listen to it on the radio or over the Internet, either audio or video streaming. The audio stream will be available on ESPN.com, and a video stream will be on NJCAA.org.

Once the game has been sanctioned as the national championship, then the NJCAA steps in and arranges for Panhandle Sports Broadcasting in Florida to shoot video at the game and provide it through the Internet, Ettore said. “It was sanctioned the day we announced the two teams (Nov. 16).”

A key difference is that in Wichita, the radio station that has been broadcasting the Butler games for years is not the radio station that will carry the championship feed. Instead, the rights to that broadcast were sold to its competitors. The station, KNSS, typically broadcasts Butler games out of Wichita, Kan., but KQAM will carry the feed from the big game.

“We weren’t offered that,” said Tony Duesing, program director at KNSS. “You’ve got these guys who don’t know anything about your team and if you don’t take (the deal) we’ll take it across the street. We’ve got established sponsors that support the team and we’d like it to be on our air, that’s why we think there might be some kind of inside dealings we don’t know about.”

KNSS is a news talk station, and works with major teams, including Kansas universities and Major League Baseball, to broadcast games from across the country of interest to local listeners, he said.

“This doesn’t happen in major leagues, except for this,” Duesing said. “I don’t think the people in Pittsburg know exactly what they’re doing.”

Dennis Higgins, who’s covered 69 straight Butler games, won’t be allowed to describe the championship game, Duesing pointed out.

Duesing ultimately blames the NJCAA.

“If this were an NCAA game they would step in and say ‘you’ve got to let the team’s broadcasters come in,’” Duesing said. “I’ve urged the teams to talk to the league and make sure they don’t mess this up next time. When the team goes to wherever the bowl game is going to be there are certain rules they need to set in place.”

The committee that formed the bowl game came up with the idea of giving exclusive rights to the T-shirt vendor, program printer and the radio broadcaster, and sent out bid requests in September, long before anyone knew it would be the national championship. Only one radio station responded — KSEK sent in a bid for $1,000, and the committee accepted it, Ettore said.

“As a bowl committee we have to make money to sustain the bowl,” Ettore said. “Whether it’s unusual or not, this is what we decided to do in the last two years. It was right for our bowl. Monetarily, we need to sustain the bowl, and hosting the national championship escalates our costs even more.”

Steve Petty, who has been doing color commentary for the Bulldogs for the last several years isn’t going to Pittsburg this weekend. He had airline and hotel reservations, but he’s thinking of heading off to his deer lease instead.

“It’s not right,” he said. “I’m not mad about it, but I’m disappointed. They way this was done was very wrong.”

Navarro College won’t get any money from the bowl game. The Citizens Bank Bowl organizers offered the college 50 student, and 50 adult tickets, 40 hotel rooms for two nights, $3,200 in travel stipends, two meals, and a gift for the participating athletes, such as a T-shirt, plaque or watch. The school will have to pay for charter buses for the team, cheerleaders and band, according to Roark Montgomery, athletic director for Navarro College.

Pittsburg doesn’t have a junior college, but is the home of Pittsburg State University, a four-year institution where the stadium is located. Two years ago, a group of sports-minded supporters decided to seek a bowl game for Southeastern Kansas and found the sponsors and a location, Ettore explained. It’s one of nine bowl games played each year around the country.

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