CHARLESTON – West Liberty University men’s and women’s basketball fans throughout the Ohio Valley will be able to watch live telecasts of every Hilltoppers WVIAC Tournament game thanks to WLU-TV 14’s expanded coverage of the 75th anniversary event.
Live telecasts of all West Liberty tournament games will air on Comcast Channel 14 and Me-TV, a digital classic arm of WTOV9, the local NBC affiliate in Steubenville.
It will be a ground-breaking week for WLU-TV 14 as West Liberty Television has partnered with the WVIAC to produce live telecasts of the men’s and women’s championship games which will be available to a regional cable audience of more than 2 million people on ROOT SPORTS Pittsburgh.
The WLU-TV 14 production of Saturday’s 75th Anniversary men’s championship game will be shown live at 6 p.m. on ROOT SPORTS Pittsburgh in addition to Comcast Channel 14 and Me-TV. The women’s championship game will air live on Comcast Channel 14 and Me-TV at 3 p.m. Saturday.
ROOT SPORTS Pittsburgh will show the women’s game on a tape-delay basis Sunday at 8 a.m. and plans to re-air the men’s and women’s championship games in prime time on Monday, March 12. The women’s game will be shown at 8 p.m. with the men’s game to follow at 10 p.m.
”West Liberty University Television is thrilled to bring live TV coverage of every West Liberty tournament game home to the Ohio Valley,” said Reid Amos, voice of the Hilltoppers and Vice President of Broadcasting for West Liberty. ”Additionally, it is really something special for our broadcasting program to be chosen to produce the telecast for the largest potential audience in the 75-year history of the WVIAC Tournament through ROOT SPORTS Pittsburgh.”
ROOT SPORTS Pittsburgh is the cable home of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Pittsburgh Penguins. It is available in 99 percent of the cable homes in West Virginia along with the majority of Pennsylvania. With additional cable outlets in eastern Ohio and western Maryland, ROOT SPORTS is available nationwide on DirecTV (659) and Dish Network (428). ROOT SPORTS annually delivers approximately 350 live events to more than 2.4 million potential viewers.
Amos, who is serving as executive producer for all WVIAC Tournament telecasts and will have the play-by-play call for every game, noted that the WLU-TV 14 productions are joint efforts combining experienced industry professionals with talented West Liberty students.
West Liberty Television has provided West Liberty game coverage from the WVIAC Tournament for the past four years and was the first to deliver live telecasts to the Ohio Valley during last season’s tournament. Members of the WLU student crew fill such roles as assistant producer, sideline reporter, graphics operator, instant replay operator, camera operator and audio.
The first WLU-TV 14 telecast is set for 6:30 tonight when the West Liberty women meet top-seeded W.Va. Wesleyan in a WVIAC women’s quarterfinal game.
The top-seeded Hilltoppers men open defense of their WVIAC Tournament title Thursday night in an 8:30 p.m. quarterfinal against Shepherd, which beat West Virginia State on Tuesday night.
Source: The Intelligencer / Wheeling News Register article “WLU Tourney Games on TV”