College Sports Information Directors of America

read online by Marc Ransford, Media Relations Manager

MUNCIE, Ind. -- Students in Ball State University's Sports Link program soon will be the only college undergraduates producing content for broadcast by Fox College Sports (FCS).

Already an Emmy-winning immersive learning program, Sports Link, will provide the national sports network with 10 sports magazine shows that focus on Ball State sports, in additional to regular live and taped coverage of various intercollegiate sports events.

The exclusive partnership with FCS, which is available in about 56 million homes, will allow viewers in the nation's top 25 television markets to see work created and produced by Ball State students, said Chris Taylor, the telecommunications instructor overseeing Sports Link.

"This relationship to share our student work on a national stage is extremely exciting," Taylor said. "The opportunity through Fox College Sports allows us to strengthen and position our sports media program and students at Ball State as not only the best in the state but also among those that gain consistent national attention."

Created in 2008, Sports Link allows Ball State students to produce sports-related content for multiple platforms such as radio, television and the Web as well as a variety of mobile communications formats.

"It's a great reward and external validation for our student's work," Taylor said. "It's also a terrific motivational tool for the students to know everything they do has the potential to be seen nationally. We want to continue to be a national leader in sports media. Our students deserve this opportunity because they've earned it."

Fox College Sports approached Ball State about a potential partnership after reviewing several of Sports Link's recent productions, said Max Casanova, Fox College Sports vice president.

"From our perspective, it's a great pool of talent to tap into," he said. "Over the past year, we've noticed how advanced these students are. To be able to provide a platform for them to showcase their work and experience on a national level is very exciting. Ball State is the first school with which we've reached this type of agreement to showcase completely student-produced sports programming."

Sports Link's relationship with FCS is the second major partnership for the student organization. Earlier this summer, Sports Link entered an exclusive partnership with the Mid-American Conference (MAC) to provide the league with video packages during this year's football season.

Sixty student-produced segments will be used by the MAC on a variety of platforms. The packages also will be available to MAC universities as well as cable networks broadcasting MAC football games, among them ESPN's family of networks and Fox Sports.

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