October 14, 2003
BLOOMINGTON - The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) and AmeriSports Media, Inc., will join forces in an experiment to provide live broadcasts of all eight 2003 Football Playoff Championship Games on the Internet. If the experiment proves successful this fall, coverage will be expanded for the remainder of the 2003-04 school term.
Access to the live audio links will be through the IHSA Web site at www.ihsa.org and through www.broadcastmonsters.com. The broadcasts will be sponsored.
Each broadcast will include live play-by-play and analysis. Tom Wuestenfeld, president of AmeriSports Media, based in Arlington Hts., will handle much of the play-by-play duties. Other broadcasters as needed will join Wuestenfeld. Wuestenfeld is no stranger to sports radio. Since 1990 he has done basketball play-by-play for Northeastern University (1990-95), the Rockford Lightning team in the Continental Basketball Association (1995-2000), and Loyola University women's basketball. He also was an on-air sports anchor for Metro Networks/WBBM-AM, Chicago from 1994-97.
If the football broadcasts are successful, during the remainder of the 2003-04 school term, IHSA Internet will broadcast all state final tournament games in Class A and Class AA girls basketball (total of 16 games), Class A and Class AA boys basketball (total of 16 games), Class A and Class AA girls softball (total of 16 games) and Class A and Class AA boys baseball (total of 16 games), a total of 72 different game broadcasts. After the conclusion of each live broadcast, replay will be just a mouse click away.
"This is an ambitious package with great potential that the IHSA is excited to help Tom Wuestenfeld and AmeriSports Media create," said IHSA Executive Director Dr. Martin L. Hickman. "If fans cannot be at the site of the state finals to follow their favorite team, they will be able to hear the broadcast of those games at work or home or wherever they have access to the Internet."
Radio stations throughout Illinois regularly follow their hometown teams at the state finals. Except for the boys basketball tournament games, very few of the stations carry broadcasts of all the games in a respective state tournament. In the past, IHSA has carried a handful of local station broadcasts on its web site. If the experiment succeeds, every game in the football, basketball, baseball and softball tournaments will be available to fans across the state, not just those who can pick up their local radio station's broadcast.