By Gary Abbott
USA Wrestling/Themat.com
[email protected]
The college wrestling season is coming to a close, and there is something that wrestling fans can say for sure. There have been opportunities for the wrestling community all across the nation to see many of the best matches, dual meets and tournaments in the sport leading up to the NCAA Championships.
Two of the most important matchups of the year, the dual meets between Oklahoma State and Minnesota, were broadcast to a national audience. The first showdown, from the finals of the Cliff Keen/NWCA National Duals in Cedar Falls Iowa, was aired nationally on College Sports Television (CSTV). The second battle, held at Ford Center in Oklahoma City, was shown as it happened on ESPNU, the new college network within the ESPN family.
In recent years, CSTV has provided a series of wrestling matches for its national network, as part of its development of a cable station devoted to college sports. This year was no exception, as a regular schedule of matches from many of the nation’s top wrestling teams were aired on the network. ESPNU, which just recently came onto the scene with a similar format of college sports coverage, has also placed some wrestling matches as part of their programming. In addition, a number of college programs have regional television deals which brings wrestling matches to fans in their local areas.
If you add in on-line opportunities to watch wrestling, such as the events broadcast on LiveSportsVideo.com, you open up even more opportunities for wrestling fans to see the sport. Many colleges are setting up their own video-streams of wrestling dual meets. A new international web page, World Championship Sports Network, provided internet coverage of the World Championships from Budapest, Hungary, then later produced a television show that aired on networks within the USA.
It was not many years ago that the only consistent wrestling coverage on television was provided by Iowa Public Television, which continues to have a high quality series of wrestling matches on public broadcasting within the state. There was also a series of Lehigh Univ. matches aired on WLVT in Pennsylvania which went to a few regional outlets in the East. With a lack of college television shows, these events were often videotaped and sent around the nation, to help fuel the hunger of wrestling fans.
Much of the recent growth in wrestling coverage can be traced to CSTV, and its decision to give the sport a chance.
The wrestling community takes great pride in the fact that one of CSTV’s co-founders was a wrestler, former Penn State wrestling All-American Chris Bevilacqua. Recently, when CBS bought CSTV and added it to their broadcast properties, Bevilacqua remained with the network as the President of CSTV Regional Networks. The National Wrestling Media Association honored Bevilacqua as its Broadcaster of the Year last season to recognize his leadership in bringing wrestling to the national airwaves.
CSTV has also included wrestling as one of the sports highlighted on some of its feature programs during recent years.
CSTV has also been involved in a number of international wrestling competitions, both as a part of their relationship with the U.S. Olympic Committee, as well as specific coverage of USA Wrestling events.
Wrestling fans can expect two major USA Wrestling competitions to air on CSTV this year, the 2006 U.S. National Championships from Las Vegas, Nev. and the 2006 U.S. World Team Trials from Sioux City, Iowa. USA Wrestling will announce updated information on these shows, including broadcast schedules and the selection of announcers.
USA Wrestling has found that CSTV has been a partner in helping bring international wrestling to the general public. One of the positive things that CSTV has done was allowing longer shows for their wrestling broadcasts. A recent USA Wrestling event broadcast on CSTV went for two and a half hours, allowing the producers to show matches in their entirety as well as a variety of matches. In the past, many of the USA Wrestling events aired on television were restricted to a one-hour show, which had to be heavily edited to provide more than just a handful of bouts.
Another positive aspect of the CSTV coverage has been the decision to air many of the events on multiple occasions, giving each show a number of opportunities to reach more people. As CSTV has grown and been included in more and more cable packages around the nation, these additional showings have allowed additional people to be exposed to the sport and educated about wrestling. USA Wrestling has recognized the value of the repeated showings of the events which ESPN has broadcast.
Nobody can downplay the decisions by ESPN during recent seasons to cover the NCAA Championships in more depth. First came a decision to provide same-day coverage of the finals. Then came a decision to add semifinal coverage in some of its markets. Both of these have added a larger audience for our sport. Certainly, the day that Cael Sanderson won his fourth NCAA title in Albany, N.Y. and highlights appeared on SportsCenter quickly and for days was a big boost for wrestling. The more wrestling networks cover the sport, the more likely it will be that they will do it in the future and others may also decide to give it a try.
One of the best ways for wrestling to continue to see more opportunities on television is for those who enjoy to sport to make sure they watch it when it is broadcast. We are certainly seeing this trend happening. When both of the Oklahoma State vs. Minnesota matches were broadcast on television, the activity on TheMat.com’s Bulletin Boards in the college section set traffic records. Fans were watching the matches and talking with each other as the action unfolded.
Make sure to visit the wrestling web pages and find out when wrestling is on television. It does make a difference in whether the sport will be broadcast in the future.
Gary Abbott is the Director of Communications and Special Projects for USA Wrestling and is a founder of the National Wrestling Media Association and is a 2005 recipient of the NWCA Meritorious Service Award.
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