Preps will get TV spotlight
ProView, My50 will show weekly football games
The Albuquerque high school football scene is about to be seen by a whole new audience.
ProView Networks and My50 TV (KASY) have hooked up to produce a prep game of the week for the remainder of the football season, and maybe beyond.
The first broadcast is Friday from Rio Rancho Stadium between Sandia and the host and undefeated Rams.
“It’s where ProView wants to be in future,” said ProView president Steve Davis. “There is a market out there for this, and My50 is perfect for it. They are on cable with Comcast, DirecTV and DISH, so everyone can get it.
“We can stream up to five games at a time, but we’re going to have extra bells and whistles for the television broadcast. We’ll have more graphics and more cameras.”
The Rams, led by running back Josh Foley, are 5-0 and look to be the state’s top team. Sandia is 2-2.
“This is just a great chance for KASY to have a branding opportunity, and to reach out to the community,” said Joe Tracy, director of sales for the KRQE Media Group, which owns the station. “Sure, we’ll make a little money off of it, but not much. We just really wanted to do something that the community will enjoy.”
Besides all the homes they reach on cable and satellite, Tracy said this is the highest over-the-air market in the country and KASY reaches “100 percent of the homes in our DMA (designated market area), which doesn’t include Las Cruces, but does include Durango, Colo.”
Adam Diehl, ProView’s executive director, do play-by-play for football. “
It’s exciting,” he said. “This gives is a larger market. ProView is known for streaming, but we’ve moved to better technology and we’re ready for bigger, better broadcasting.”
Davis, who will be a color analyst, said that ProView is in negotiations with My50 about doing high school basketball games, but no decision will be made on that until January.
He said that there are also plans to have retired football coaches in the booth as color analysts for the football games.
In July, ProView took over Comcast channel 26 and runs New Mexico sports programming 24 hours a day.
“We try to do 10-to-12 live games a week from all types of sports on Channel 26,” Davis said. “We do just about all high school sports; soccer, cheer and dance, swimming, just about all of them, as well as the (Albuquerque) Sol and (Duke City) Gladiators pro teams.”
Tracy said My50 will show at least six high school football games this season, and will do so in high-definition.
He said it could air playoff games, but “right now we’re taking it one step at a time. We definitely will do basketball after the first of the year. We just need to figure the dates of games, because they won’t all be on a Friday night like we’re doing with football.”