Most Bison football games to be on NBC

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FARGO — It will no longer be if a North Dakota State football game will be televised this season. It will be when.

The athletic department announced Tuesday that all 11 regular season games will be on TV with most being aired by the North Dakota NBC Network. It will be a first in school history.

In addition, NDSU signed a three-year agreement for TV rights with Hoak Media, which owns KVLY-TV in Fargo. Nine games this season will be on the North Dakota network that includes KVLY and stations in Bismarck, Minot, Dickinson and Williston.

Former Valley News Live weekend sports anchor Brian Shawn will handle the play-by-play. Lee Timmerman, sports director at KFYR-TV in Bismarck, and Moorhead High head football coach Kevin Feeney will return as analysts.

The network added Chris Berg, a former Division I quarterback from Fargo South and current web radio show host, for sideline reports.

The broadcast crew won’t be doing all of the games however. Road games at Colorado State and Missouri State will be locally produced, meaning those markets will provide their own broadcast team. A home game against Youngstown State will also have a different broadcast crew because it is a Missouri Valley Football Conference telecast.

The NDSU at South Dakota game in Sioux Falls, S.D., will be aired by Midco Sports Net. The North Dakota NBC Network team will broadcast one road game at Illinois State on Nov. 17.

NDSU director of broadcasting Jeremy Jorgenson said TV details with NDSU’s game at Northern Iowa on Sept. 29 have not been finalized but the game is expected to be on KVLY and will be produced by a Cedar Falls-area TV station.

The new agreement eliminates the hassle of webcast-only games that have littered the Bison schedule the last few years. But none of the NDSU games will be televised in HD with the exception of a 30-minute studio pre-game show hosted by Valley News Live weekend sports anchor Jamal Spencer.

“It’s an expensive undertaking,” Jorgenson said. “We feel like we’ll have game coverage in HD at some point, but it’s a process.”

North Dakota State football TV schedule

Date Team TV

Sept. 1 Robert Morris, 5 p.m. NBC

Sept. 8 at Colorado State, 5 p.m. NBC

Sept. 22 Prairie View A&M, 2 p.m. NBC

Sept. 29 at Northern Iowa, 5 p.m. KVLY Fargo

Oct. 6 Youngstown State, noon NBC

Oct. 13 Indiana State, 2 p.m. NBC

Oct. 20 South Dakota (at Sioux Falls, S.D.), 5 p.m. Midco Net

Oct. 27 Southern Illinois, 1:30 p.m. NBC

Nov. 3 at Missouri State, noon NBC

Nov. 10 South Dakota State, 1:30 p.m. NBC

Nov. 17 at Illinois State, 11 a.m. NBC

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