When the Indiana Fever meet the San Antonio Silver Stars at 7 p.m. today at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, the game will be broadcast by WFNI-1070 AM.
While that wouldn't have been unusual in years past, it's one of just 17 games -- exactly half the schedule -- that will be carried by the local radio station this season.
Both parties said one of the primary reasons for the reduced number is due to scheduling concerns. Some games had to either move to a different Emmis Communications station due to conflicts with NASCAR races or Indianapolis Colts preseason games, or pre-empt other WFNI programming. Hence the lighter schedule, which was mutually agreed upon.
"We had a desire to pre-empt less of the specialty programming that we were doing," said David Wood, WFNI program director. "We also had the NBA Finals that we wanted to carry."
The station's contract with the Fever expired before the season. The team's media relations department confirmed it was a joint decision to air just 17 games.
Rather than having games moved to different stations, requiring news releases to announce changes and making it harder to find games, the Fever preferred fans know the games could only be found on WFNI or via a webcast at feverbasketball .com. The Fever said the popularity of the webcasts also contributed to the reduced radio schedule.
''There's more distribution methods now, so it wasn't really as mission critical, I think, for anyone to make sure that they were all on the radio," Wood said. "We are able to get them out to the people who want to hear it, and it was a mutual agreement where we said, 'Hey, this works out for both of us.' "
Of the Fever's 21 remaining games, 18 will be broadcast on the website, including tonight's game, and eight will be on WFNI.
The July 12 game against Los Angeles and the Sept. 12 game against Seattle will be streamed live on ESPN3.com and shown on ESPN2. The Aug. 21 game at Los Angeles will be broadcast by WFNI but will only be available on the website's archives so it is not competing with another WNBA game on ESPN2.
All playoff games would be broadcast by WFNI.
Contact The Star's James Oldham on Twitter at @BuckeyeWriter23 or call at (317) 444-6644.
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