DEKALB, Ill. -- Northern Illinois University today announced Rockford FOX affiliate WQRF will televise its men's basketball game Dec. 2 against Bradley and that Peoria CBS affiliate WMBD (31) will carry the broadcast in Central Illinois. The announcement means no fewer than 17 Bradley men's basketball games will be televised during the 2009-10 season, including 11 of the team's 14 games being played away from home.
For the third consecutive year, Peoria cable provider Comcast will serve as Bradley's primary television partner and will broadcast eight Missouri Valley Conference games on Comcast Spotlight (Channel 74). Comcast will continue its working agreement to share those broadcasts with Central Illinois Mediacom outlets and has expanded its network to the Chicagoland Comcast cable outlets, building a network of more than 1.5 million homes for its eight Bradley Basketball broadcasts. The Comcast games would appear on Channel 102 in the Chicagoland area.
The eight Comcast Spotlight productions will be: Dec. 29 at Drake, Jan. 3 at Wichita State, Jan. 9 at Missouri State, Jan. 16 versus Missouri State, Jan. 20 at Southern Illinois, Jan. 27 versus Creighton, Feb. 9 versus Illinois State and Feb. 16 at Indiana State. Through its relationship with Mediacom, Comcast also will air Iowa State's broadcast of the Dec. 20 non-conference road game against the Cyclones.
In addition to its local partnership with Comcast, Bradley also is allowing Central Illinois PBS affiliate WTVP to televise two home games from Carver Arena: Dec. 7 versus Western Carolina and Feb. 2 versus Drake. The Feb. 2 game against the Bulldogs will air only on WTVP's high-definition channel, 47.2.
The Missouri Valley Conference has selected three Bradley games for its annual MVC-TV package: Jan. 30 at Illinois State, Feb. 6 at Evansville and the home game Feb. 13 versus Northern Iowa. The Valley also will broadcast all of the quarterfinal and semifinal games during the State Farm MVC Tournament in St. Louis. The MVC-TV network includes Fox Sports Midwest, Comcast SportsNet Chicago, FS Indiana, FS Kansas City, Fox College Sports and MetroSports in Kansas City.
Through The Valley's contract with the ESPN family of networks, Bradley's visit to UNI Jan. 12 will be broadcast on ESPNU, a premium sports channel available locally on Comcast channel 511 in the provider's Digital Premier package and on both DirecTV (614) and DISH Network (148). Bradley's season-opener Nov. 13 at BYU was broadcast on The MountainWest Network, also known as The MTN
Bradley's Feb. 20 game in the annual BracketBusters series remains an option for either ESPN2 or ESPNU and the Feb. 27 game at Creighton could be selected for airing on the MVC-TV network. Pairings for the 11 official BracketBusters games will be announced Feb. 1, while the time and network assignments will be announced Feb. 8. The television assignments for the MVC-TV Wildcard Weekend will be made at approximately the same time. And for the fifth consecutive year, CBS will nationally televise the championship game of the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament March 7.
Bradley has explored numerous options to televise its games from the Orleans Arena during the final two rounds of the HoopTV Las Vegas Invitational, but to date viewing of those games Nov. 27 versus Oklahoma State and Nov. 28 against either Illinois or Utah will be limited to the video streaming provided by HoopTV.
