BANGOR, Maine — Bangor TV station ABC 7 will be televising six high school basketball tourney semifinals next week, the station announced during its Friday night newscast.
ABC 7 worked out the deal to do the games with the Northeast Sports Network of Vermont, which will be live streaming the games online, and with the Maine Principals’ Association, the governing body for the state’s high school sports.
“We never wanted to go away from television, but we had no options,” Maine Principals’ Association Executive Director Dick Durost said. “This way we’ll at least be able to get some TV.”
Durost said ABC 7 paid both the Maine Principals’ Association and Northeast Sports Network an undisclosed fee to show the games and will air two games each day Wednesday through Friday. The station will determine which afternoon games it wants to show and can pick up the live stream from sites at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor and the Augusta Civic Center.
The station will announce its game schedule next week and will not televise night games because that would disrupt its evening network programming.
For the past 36 years, tourney games were televised by the Maine Public Broadcasting Network, but it announced in November 2015 it didn’t have the resources for coverage for the 2016 tourney with the addition of a fifth class to high school basketball.
MPBN later announced it would televise and stream the 10 state championship basketball games, and then the Maine Principals’ Association agreed to a one-year deal with the Northeast Sports Network to stream the tourney’s regional semifinal and finals at all three sites in Bangor, Augusta and Portland.
The National Federation of State High School Associations Network, which is based in Atlanta, is live streaming the quarterfinals in both regions (North and South) for the third straight year.
The quarterfinals can be watched at http://www.nfhsnetwork.com/; the semifinals and finals can be watched at http://www.nsnsports.net/ and the MPBN website is http://www.mpbn.net.
TOURNEY NOTES: Durost said the Saturday game schedule in Bangor will be held despite a forecast for a snowstorm. A Class B North boys quarterfinal between No. 10 Maine Central Institute of Pittsfield and No. 2 Ellsworth at 9:05 a.m. at the Cross Insurance Center tips off a seven-game day.
BDN sports writer Larry Mahoney contributed to this report.
