PEORIA, Ill. - No fewer than 18 Bradley men's basketball games will be televised during the 2010-11 regular season as the Braves will make multiple appearances on the ESPN family of networks and the Fox Sports network, as well as 10 games as part of the school's local television partnership with PBS affiliate WTVP.
The combination of local and Missouri Valley Conference sponsored packages means at least 15 of Bradley's 18 Valley games will be televised, including all nine of the league road games. The combination of local and Valley productions also means at least 10 of the team's 14 regular-season games played away from home will be televised.
Bradley's local television package on WTVP World (47.2) will include five home and five road broadcasts, beginning with the Nov. 16 home game versus Northern Illinois. The other home games in the package will be Dec. 4 versus Utah, Jan. 4 against Southern Illinois, Jan. 26 versus Illinois State and Feb. 12 versus Evansville. The five road telecasts on WTVP World include all five of Bradley's Missouri Valley Conference road games not already being covered through the MVC-TV Network and ESPN: Dec. 29 at Indiana State, Jan. 9 at Northern Iowa, Jan. 19 at Creighton, Jan. 23 at Evansville and Feb. 5 at Southern Illinois.
In addition to announcing its local broadcast schedule on WTVP World, the PBS affiliate also has determined Bradley Athletics and Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Famer Frank Bussone (play-by-play) and former men's basketball player Chad Kleine (analyst) will serve as the on-air talent during the 2010-11 season.
WTVP is the PBS affiliate for Central Illinois and is available to more than 700,000 viewers in the 22-county region surrounding Peoria, Bloomington/Normal and Galesburg. WTVP World is available over the air on channel 47.2 and on the digital tier of the local Comcast and Mediacom base cable packages: Comcast Digital Cable channel 218 in Peoria, Morton, Pekin, Canton, Bloomington/Normal and Galesburg areas; Mediacom Digital Cable channel 121 in Fairbury, Atlanta, LeRoy, Heyworth and McLean County. WTVP is currently seeking sponsorship partners from area businesses and organizations. Interested parties should contact Phil Zeni, Vice President of Development at (309) 495-0561 or phil.zeni@wtvp.org.
The Braves will make the first of at least four appearances on the ESPN family of networks Dec. 8 when they visit defending national champion Duke in an 8 p.m. (CT) tilt to be televised on ESPN2. Bradley will make additional ESPN network appearances Jan. 1 at home versus Wichita State (ESPNU), Jan. 16 at home against Missouri State (ESPNU) and Jan. 29 at Wichita State (ESPN2).
The MVC-TV Network package on FS Midwest, Comcast SportsNet Chicago, FS Indiana, FS Kansas City and Fox College Sports will include at least four appearances by Bradley: Jan. 7 at Drake, Feb. 9 at Missouri State, Feb. 15 versus UNI and Feb. 22 at Illinois State. In addition to the extended basic cable inclusion of the Fox Sports regional networks by most cable systems, Fox College Sports is a 24-hour sports channel available on most premium sports cable and satellite television packages.
Bradley's 2010-11 broadcast schedule could be expanded midway through the season with the announcement of the Feb. 18-20 BracketBusters pairings and the Feb. 26 MVC Wildcard Weekend broadcasts. Pairings for the ninth annual BracketBusters event will be announced Jan. 31 and the three-day event will feature 11 nationally-televised games, five on ESPN or ESPN2 and six on ESPNU. In addition, each of The Valley's five regular-season finales Feb. 26 will be considered for three broadcast spots as part of the annual MVC Wildcard Weekend package: one game will be aired at noon on ESPN2 and two games will be shown later in the day on the MVC-TV Network. Bradley hosts Drake in the Feb. 26 finale.
