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IMG To Launch College Football Blitz

Jason Barrett

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The NFL’s two RedZone channels have become a TV phenomenon, whipping viewers around to potential scoring plays on any given Sunday. Now, IMG will launch its own RedZone-like channel for college football fans on Saturdays. But they’ll do it via digital radio.

IMG tells Sporting News they plan to announce the new College Football Blitz, a live and on-demand digital audio platform, as early as Thursday. Starting this Saturday, College Football Blitz will offer 10 hours of live, cut-in radio coverage all day on Saturdays from 2 p.m. ET to midnight. Plus, scoring updates, on-demand highlights, coaches interviews and analysis.

Produced by IMG, College Football Blitz will be available on SiriusXM, TuneIn Radio and IMGCollege.com. It will run through the end of the 2015 regular season, but won’t include postseason action. The whip around format will encompass an estimated 75 percent of Power 5 conference games played this season.

Think of College Football Blitz as the Internet radio version of ESPN’s Goal Line TV channel for college football and other collegiate sports. ESPN Goal Line  offers whiparound TV coverage for viewers of college football, college basketball (Buzzer Beater) and college baseball (Bases Loaded). ESPN launched Goal Line in 2010. In addition to Goal Line for TV viewers, ESPN Radio broadcasts College GameDay from noon to 7 p.m ET on college football Saturdays to update listeners on the action.

But the best part of College Football Blitz is that fans will be able to listen some of the great, hometown radio talent calling regional college games from anywhere in the country, according to Chris Ferris, VP of Broadcasting for IMG Audio.

They include Don Criqui at Notre Dame, Dan Dierdorf at Michigan, Gene Deckerhoff at Florida State, Bill Roth at UCLA, Eric LeGrand and Ray Lucas at Rutgers, and Damon Huard at Washington.

Criqui is one of the most famous play-by-play announcers in sports history, calling NFL football for 47 seasons from 1967 to 2013. Sportscasters want to be heard by as many people as possible. The more fans listening to their work, the better, said Criqui in a statement to Sporting News.

Football broadcasters will all welcome being incorporated into the Blitz,” he said. “How can you beat having your broadcast available everywhere? The Blitz is a win-win for everyone involved, listeners and broadcasters.

About 80 percent of the action on College Football Blitz will be live, according to Andrew Giangola, VP of Strategic Communications for IMG College. There will also be halftime and post-game shows hosted by two anchors he declined to name.

To read the rest of the article visit the Sporting News where it was originally published

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Sports Radio News

101.9 The Horn in Austin Sold to Norsan Media

Norsan has appointed Edgar Saucedo as Southwest Market President overseeing all of the company’s Texas operations and Ramon Loo as Austin Program Director.

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Logo for 101.9 The Horn in Austin, TX

A Radio Insight report says Norsan Media has purchased 101.9 The Horn in Austin, Texas from Genuine Austin Radio. According to the report, Norsan had already been operation a couple of Genuine Austin Radio’s stations and will now take add the rest of their stations, which also includes country stations 99.3 FM.

The report also says Norsan has appointed Edgar Saucedo as Southwest Market President overseeing all of the company’s Texas operations and Ramon Loo as Austin Program Director.

The Horn used to also be on 104.9 FM and was the University of Texas flagship station for Longhorn athletics. That stopped when Norsan took over the signal to air Regional Mexican programming. The Texas Rangers games air currently on The Horn.

Should anything change with the programming or format at The Horn, we will keep you posted.

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AJ Hoffman Headed to Mornings on San Antonio’s Sports Star

“Excited for my next chapter post-Vegas and stoked to start building an audience in San Antonio!”

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Photo of AJ Hoffman and a logo for 94.1 San Antonio's Sports Star

AJ Hoffman announced via his X account he will be back on local radio in Texas doing mornings at San Antonio’s Sports Star. “Life announcement,” Hoffman wrote. “I’m moving back to Texas. Starting May 6, you can find me back on local radio, doing mornings on San Antonio’s Sports Star. Excited for my next chapter post-Vegas and stoked to start building an audience in San Antonio!”

Hoffman had worked for several years at ESPN 97.5 in Houston and was most recently in Las Vegas serving as the executive vice president and director of digital content for Pregame, an information site for sports wagering.

Hoffman had hosted the popular show, The Blitz, with Fred Faour for more than 10 years and then became the station Program Director in 2019. He exited the station in the summer of 2021 to take the position with Pregame.

San Antonio’s Sports Star made a change earlier this year in mornings when Rudy Jay left the station in mid-January. RJ Ochoa, Managing Editor of the ‘Blogging the Boys’ website, took over for Jay, doing the show with station Program Director Rob Thompson.

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Steak Shapiro About Pat McAfee: “Dude, Relax”

“That is the definition of cringe. You have to be authentic.”

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Graphic for The Steakhouse on 92.9 in Atlanta and a picture of Pat McAfee

Sports radio has spent a lot of time during this football offseason talking about Bill Belichick. From his ending in New England to the search for a new head coaching position to being a free agent in the sports media world, his name has come up often. Steak Shapiro and Sandra Golden hit on the topic this week during The Steakhouse on 92.9 The Game in Atlanta.

A lengthy story from ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr., Seth Wickersham and Jeremy Fowler this week reported Belichick may not have landed the Atlanta Falcons head coaching position because of a conversation Falcons owner Arthur Blank had with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Another part of the story says the executives around Arthur Blank didn’t have Belichick in their top 3 of candidates which had interviewed for the position.

The same report also divulged that Belichick is expected to sign a deal with Omaha Productions to provide analysis and is interested in potentially coaching either the Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles or New York Giants after taking this year off.

The same day, The Pat McAfee Show had Belichick on as a guest and announced the coach would join McAfee and team for their annual Draft Spectacular.

Shapiro and Golden talked about the article as it related to Atlanta, but also about Belichick’s appearance on McAfee’s show. “[Belichick] on McAfee trying to be this lighthearted guy that loves The Pat McAfee Show, it’s a stretch dude, that is a stretch.”

“That is the definition of cringe,” Golden replied. “You have to be authentic.”

Shapiro does an impersonation of McAfee talking excitedly about hanging out with Belichick and said, “Dude, relax, relax…the whole thing…I wish we hadn’t gotten started on this…”

Back in late January, McAfee had said on his show about Belichick, “I would like to let everybody know…I will make this promise that if Bill Belichick is going to do TV, ol’ Pat McAfee will be in the running to try to get Bill Belichick to join our progrum [sic],” McAfee said. “Belichick… knows everything about the NFL. Every game that’s ever been played…every player that’s ever been great — that’s why he was so great on [NFL 100 All-Time Team]. And after what we saw on College GameDay, he’s got moxie too. He’s great on TV, I think we’ll all be incredibly lucky if that’s the case.”

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