LOS ANGELES – ESPN Radio and the University of Southern California (USC) today announced a multi-year agreement in which the network will have exclusive national broadcast rights for all home Trojans football games.
This marks ESPN Radio’s first nationally exclusive broadcasting agreement with a college football program and only the second such agreement in the industry (Notre Dame and IMG Sports).
“We have had a long relationship with USC which has proven to be an excellent one in many ways,” says Tim McCarthy, Sr. Vice President, ESPN Radio Play by Play & Talent Planning. “We will work closely with USC to develop ancillary marketing opportunities to touch USC fans everywhere.”
The ESPN Radio-USC agreement also provides Spanish-language rights for ESPN Deportes Radio, the country’s first and only 24/7 national Spanish-language sports radio network, with every USC home and away game being cleared in the LA market.
“USC and the Trojan football program are extremely excited to have all of our home games carried nationally by ESPN Radio,” said Pat Haden, USC’s Charles Griffin Cale Director of Athletics’ Chair. “To partner with ESPN Radio and have the USC brand distributed at this level is a fantastic opportunity to reach Trojan fans throughout the nation. It is also immensely important that we will be able to reach our Hispanic fan base throughout Southern California with ESPN Deportes.”
“This agreement with ESPN Radio will provide tremendous, unprecedented exposure for USC football and it will help elevate the USC brand,” said Dan Shell, Vice President and General Manager, USC Sports Properties. “It will also benefit our sponsors by providing them with a nationally distributed platform to connect with their target audience.”
USC Sports Properties will retain the right to sell local radio inventory in packages as part of its overall sales efforts for USC athletics.
ESPN Radio will present USC games on up to 300 affiliates nationwide. 710 ESPN Los Angeles (KSPN) has been the flagship station of the USC Football Radio Network (Fresno to San Diego) since 2006.
USC Sports Properties
A division of Fox Sports Net, USC Sports Properties is a full service sales and marketing organization representing the University of Southern California. Its mission is to create long-term strategic partnerships through customized, integrated marketing programs that deliver great value while addressing the needs and objectives of its corporate partners, USC, and its stakeholders.
About ESPN Audio
ESPN Audio is comprised of the country’s largest sports radio network, featured event programming, ESPN Deportes, ESPNRadio.com, and ESPN Podcasts.
ESPN Radio provides more than 9,000 hours of talk and event content annually to 24 million listeners a week on more than 700 stations, including owned stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas, and more than 300 full-time affiliates. ESPN Radio offers the only all-sports Spanish radio network, ESPN Deportes, which has 45 affiliates with stations in nine of the top 10 Hispanic markets. ESPNRadio.com is the most listened to live stream of any terrestrial broadcaster in the world – reaching more than three million unique users per month (source: Omniture) and one million unique listeners per month (source: Ando Media).
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