Last week McDaniel College unveiled its new sports broadcasting service. This came with the shocking announcement that McDaniel College Green Terror football games would no longer be broadcast on WTTR radio 1470am as they have been for as long as most can remember.
In an interview, the college’s Athletic Director Paul Moyer explained that WTTR no longer wished to broadcast the games over the air but was willing to broadcast the games on their website. The college had already been planning to expand football game broadcasts to video this season with the completion of construction of Kenneth R. Gill Stadium, so the college decided they could better broadcast everything in-house. The new broadcast will no longer use Pack Network, the service they had been using the last couple of years, but will instead begin a new partnership with BoxCast, an online video-streaming service. All sporting events held in Gill Gym or on the football field will be broadcast through a live video feed. Games will also be available in high definition video for a charge of six dollars per game.
Moyer explained the charge for HD programming came from the fact that BoxCast wanted on average about five dollars. According to Moyer, since most schools were charging from five to seven dollars, McDaniel went right in between. The announcers of the football game are the same as before and the format has remained mostly unchanged. Although the press release said the format would be completely unchanged, this referred only to the football aspects. The last few years, WTTR had also been doing a tailgate show prior to beginning that will no longer be around; however, the pre-game Green and Gold Kickoff show will continue to air 20 minutes before the game.
The college still needs to address what tailgaters will do if they want to listen to the game. Since the game will only be broadcast online, there will be too long of a delay for tailgaters to listen to the play-by-play. This could be fixed by broadcasting the games on WMCR, something which Moyer said has not been ruled out. He also added that McDaniel has not ruled out having the games broadcast tape delay or live over Green Terror Television. In addition with the loss of WTTR, the football games will not reach audiences they used to. After a McDaniel game was over, one could previously walk into a shop on Main Street and find people at the counter would already know the results of the game. That could change now that games are no longer available on the radio.
The new broadcasts of the games so far have had great quality, and with the new construction of Gill Stadium, camera angles are perfect for watching sporting events, something many older Division III stadiums have trouble with. This is because of low camera angles due to the height of the Stadium. McDaniel has gone from a school without any videoed football games to having one of the best presentations of any school in the Centennial Conference. Now, no matter where you are in the world, you have no excuse to miss a Green Terror game.
