The University of Maryland yesterday announced a lucrative four-year deal for radio rights to its football and basketball broadcasts that will guarantee the financially strapped athletic department $900,000 over the length of the contract.
The school reached agreement with Learfield Communications, a Jefferson City, Mo.-based media conglomerate that holds the radio rights to eight other universities in the Big Ten, Big Eight and the Pacific-10 conferences in a deal that will pay Maryland $575,000 more than it made in the previous deal and possibly more in a revenue sharing plan.
The new money, though not nearly as large an amount as some professional teams receive in rights fees, will make a significant dent in the athletic department's $7 million budget deficit, and was a big enough lure for Learfield to supplant Charlotte, N.C.-based Jefferson Pilot Communications, which had held the Maryland rights for five years.
"Given the amount of our deficit, a guarantee of $900,000 is significant, and we respect what they've done for other institutions," said Maryland athletic director Debbie Yow.
In addition to the football and men's basketball broadcasts, Learfield -- which holds the rights to Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, Purdue, Wisconsin, Arizona, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State broadcasts -- also will produce football coach Mark Duffner's television show as well as the radio call-in shows of Duffner and men's basketball coach Gary Williams.
Learfield, which arranges the network of stations that carries games, also will produce yearly highlight tapes for the two sports, broadcast at least five women's basketball games, and produce the programs and lineup cards that will be sold and distributed at Maryland sporting events.
"We had to use in-house staff to coordinate the radio shows and do the printing of the programs. We shouldn't be doing that. We were glad to let them do that," said Yow.
With the deal, Learfield, which operates news and satellite divisions, as well as a data service and the Brown field Network, the nation's largest farm network, gains entry into the lucrative East Coast market.
"We're in the business of doing these sorts of deals with universities and we obtain what we call 'multimedia rights,' though the school believes and we do, too, that the primary revenue opportunities lie with radio," said Roger Gardiner, general manager of Learfield's sports division.
Yow and Gardiner said they expect WBAL (1090 AM) to remain a Maryland affiliate.
Johnny Holliday, the longtime play-by-play voice of the football and men's basketball teams, will retain his post, as will football analyst Gerry Sandusky of Channel 11 and basketball color man Greg Manning.