TuneIn and IMG College, a college sports programming provider, are partnering on college football content.
“A large percentage of the college fan base lives outside the markets of their favorite school. For each of these teams and their fans, TuneIn is essentially a flagship station,” says Rick Barakat, vice president of Sales Strategy and Operations for IMG College. He calls the deal an advancement in distributing IMG audio content, and a complement to the existing streaming platforms of each school.
TuneIn will also carry basketball coverage for each of the participating IMG schools, when the season begins in November. Basketball fans will be able to hear play-by-play games from college hoops programs including defending national champion University of Connecticut Huskies, as well as schools like Kentucky, Kanas, Gonzaga, and Pittsburgh.
Games from some 60 IMG College schools will be on TuneIn, each with their own channel. That makes it “easy for fans to connect with their favorite teams and hometown announcers, and provide listeners with free, team-specific programming from wherever they may be in the world,” says TuneIn VP Programming Kevin Straley.
IMG operates an independent college sports radio network, producing and distributing 35,000 hours of college sports programming each year. TuneIn provides IMG with a new international digital network, and says it will increase reach and access to IMG programming via their free, mobile distribution channels.
TuneIn has college football coverage with hundreds of live games from every major conference, including the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC, AAC, MAC and WAC. In addition to the 60+ IMG College schools, TuneIn will carry coverage of USC, Colorado, Oregon State and Stanford. Fans can search “college football” on the TuneIn Radio app or visit TuneIn.com/collegefootball for a list of teams.
