Saturday, May 26, 2007

ACC still king in Columbia

TheState:

By DOUG NYE - dougnyesc@yahoo.com

It has been 15 years since the University of South Carolina joined the SEC and 36 years since it left the ACC. Yet, the Columbia television market is still considered prime ACC territory by some people.

For example, when Fox Sports Net (cable channel 31) announced it would be televising today's ACC and SEC baseball tournament games, it placed the ACC games in the Columbia market.

Kate Hart, publicist for FSN and SportSouth (cable channel 21), said that decision was made "because there are so many ACC teams in the Carolinas." It was pointed out that there is one ACC school in South Carolina and four in North Carolina and that Columbia was the home of an SEC school. Hart said, "I'll get back to you on that."

She called back on Thursday morning to say that FOX, which owns both channels, had come up with a plan: Today's 4 p.m. SEC game will be carried on SportSouth.

Today's second SEC game, at 7:30 p.m., will be seen in Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee but not in South Carolina. As planned, FSN will have today's ACC lineup, with Clemson playing Wake Forest at 4 p.m. and Florida State scheduled to meet Miami at 7 p.m.

Hart said one of the reasons FSN put the ACC on in Columbia was because of the league's new tournament format, which features pool play. "We knew Clemson would be playing at 4 p.m. on Friday and didn't know if South Carolina would be playing," Hart said. More...


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