NCHSAA finds short-term fix to televising championship games

Time Warner Cable will still broadcast three N.C. High School Athletic Association championships this spring – girls soccer and boys and girls lacrosse, but the board of directors has found a different service to cover baseball, softball and track and field.

Time Warner Cable was NCHSAA’s exclusive media partner for 11 years, but the Time Warner/Spectrum Sports SportsChannel is shutting down this month. TWC SportsChannel has televised a number of NCHSAA regular season games and almost all state championships in that time.

The channel refused its right to broadcast baseball, softball and track and field, so those sports will be streamed by a subscription-based service, which the NCHSAA will announce next week.

Those championships will not be televised over the air or on cable. The service might not be the long-term answer, however, and the NCHSAA is working on finding a partner to broadcast championships in the fall.

The board allowed the NCHSAA to negotiate a new deal and keep the board posted on the process. Waiting for the winter board meeting to approve a new partner would be too late for fall sports.

“Our hope is that we will still have Thursday night football. We will be looking at streaming differently than we have in the past, because that’s the way this is all going,” NCHSAA commissioner Que Tucker said.

TWC SportsChannel has donated all of its old championship and live broadcast tapes to the NCHSAA for archiving.

This story was originally published May 3, 2017 at 11:34 AM with the headline "NCHSAA finds short-term fix to televising championship games."