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Published on Sunday, 01 April 2012 10:04
WGN-AM will exclusively broadcast the 2012 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament championship game on Monday night. With no sports station in town willing or able to carry the biggest game in college basketball tomorrow, WGN-AM has signed on to broadcast the game to the Chicago radio market.
Even though WGN-AM does have a large sports department, which handles live broadcasts for the Chicago Cubs, Chicago Blackhawks and Northwestern Wildcats, this will not be a production of WGN Sports. Instead, WGN-AM will interrupt its own broadcasts to carry the live feed supplied by Dial Global Sports (formerly Westwood One) and the NCAA Radio Network.
Pregame coverage will begin on Monday at 7:00pm, followed by coverage of the game itself starting shortly after 8:00pm live from the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The pregame and halftime shows will be hosted by John Tautges and Bill Walton. The game will be called by play-by-play announcer Kevin Kugler, along with analysts John Thompson and Bill Raftery, as well as courtside reporter Jim Gray.
The big game will be heard on AM 720, however, due to NCAA rules, it will
NOT be streamed online via WGNRadio.com or via WGN Radio's mobile apps. WGN-AM can only broadcast it via its terrestrial airwaves. It its place, the WGN Radio stream will feature "The Best Of WGN" repeats.
Assuming the NCAA basketball game broadcast ends at around 11:00pm, WGN-AM will then switch back to live & local programming with a shortened edition of "Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg" running until Midnight.
