MPBN to broadcast 10 high school basketball state finals

By Larry Mahoney

BDN Staff Writer

The Maine Public Broadcasting Network (MPBN) has been awarded television broadcast and streaming rights for the 10 high school boys and girls basketball state finals in February. The rights will include broadcast coverage of the Class AA, A, B, C and D state championship basketball games and the state cheerleading finals.

“The Maine Principals’ Association is pleased that MPBN will be able to televise the 2016 state championship basketball games in all five classes, both boys and girls. This will allow for all of us to carry on the MPA/MPBN tradition and partnership first established in 1979,” the Maine Principals’ Association Executive Director Richard Durost said in a release.

“We look forward to the 38th year and beyond of providing this service to the citizens of Maine,” he added.

MPBN paid $10,000 for the broadcast rights, according to Cory Morrissey, director of marketing and underwriting for MPBN. “We just submitted a bid for the finals because it is something we know we can manage and provide to the entire state. We’re super excited,” Morrissey said.

Durost said negotiations for the rights to the regional basketball semifinals and finals are still underway with two companies.

MPBN began telecasting Classes B and C and tourney games in 1979, and it added Class A games in 2003 when WABI-TV of Bangor and the Maine Principals’ Association ended a 50-year association.

MPBN said that it could no longer do all of those tourney games this season since the Maine Principals’ Association added a fifth class to basketball for the upcoming season and that meant there would be games going on simultaneously at three different sites instead of two. MPBN didn’t have the resources for that added coverage.

Durost said he was happy with the MPBN agreement. “We had concerns we wouldn’t be able to present some kind of coverage  to people who live in rural communities who couldn’t get to games as well as the elderly. Under the circumstances, this is about as good a situation as we can get,” he said.

“There are no television entities out there [except MPBN] that could come in and provide the same kind of coverage MPBN can offer because they can’t free themselves up from their national affiliates [and responsibilities],” he added.

Durost said the agreement is “a one-year deal, and we’ll decide where to go after that.”

To commemorate MPBN’s 38th year of delivering basketball coverage to Maine, MPBN is planning on creating a Championship Weekend of coverage to include live coverage of all the Friday and Saturday state games and delivering them to MPBN’s state-wide television audience as well as rebroadcasting the games in their entirety that Sunday.

“We are very excited to once again partner with the Maine Principals’ Association and continue our tradition of covering high school basketball and thank them for this opportunity. Offering basketball coverage to every community across Maine is very important to us as an organization,” Mark Vogelzang, MPBN’s CEO, said in the release.

“We believe our Championship Weekend will create considerable excitement in the state as we showcase the top teams and student-athletes competing for their schools and their communities. You never know what might happen on the court at any given time, and MPBN will be there for every play and outcome,” he said.

The state finals will include games taking place in Portland, Augusta and Bangor. MPBN will announce its coverage schedule in early February.