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Published on Wednesday, 03 October 2012 07:55
This week, the Chicago Bulls made sports headlines by signing head coach Tom Thibodeau to a four year extension. However, that wasn't the only contract extension the team agreed to this week. The Chicago Bulls organization have extended the contract with WRTO-AM to allow the station to exclusively broadcast games in Spanish for another three years.
WRTO-AM has been broadcasting select Chicago Bulls games in Spanish for the last three seasons. The new contract extension, announced yesterday, will allow the radio station to continue broadcasting Bulls games through the end 2014-15 season.
Univision's WRTO-AM will broadcast every regular season home game, as well as every pre-season and post-season home game. Road games will not be broadcast.
Calling the Bulls games for WRTO-AM this season will be the team of Omar Ramos and Matt Moreno. This will mark the fourth season of Omar Ramos as Bulls play-by-play announcer. He also is the play-by-play announcer for WRTO-AM's Cubs broadcasts and previously was the announcer for the station's White Sox broadcasts. Additionally, Ramos is the afternoon drive personality on Univision sister-stations WVIV-FM/WVIX-FM and was nominated for a Marconi Award in 2009 for Spanish Personality of the Year. Matt Moreno will be making his debut on the radio as the Bulls broadcasts' color analyst. Since September 2009, Moreno has been the Web Manager for the Chicago Bulls organization, responsible for maintaining, designing, and developing new features for Bulls.com.
In the recent past, WRTO-AM has also aired local Spanish language sports broadcasts of the Chicago Cubs, the Chicago White Sox, and the Chicago Fire.
Earlier this summer, WRTO-AM stopped airing most local programming to become part of the nationally syndicated "Univision America" radio network. The station will break from its national programming to cover the Chicago Bulls games.
The station will also add a new local weekly sports talk show entitled "El Corral De Los Bulls." This show will be hosted by the Bulls broadcast team of Ramos and Moreno. "El Corral De Los Bulls" ("The BullPen") will recap the past week's games and Bulls news, and preview the games ahead.
Steve Schanwald, Executive Vice President of Business Operations for the Chicago Bulls, said in the announcement: "We are delighted to be continuing our mutually beneficial association with WRTO-AM for the next three seasons. Our Hispanic fans are most important to us, and so reaching them through these radio broadcasts in the Spanish language plays a critical role in our attempt to grow new and more passionate Bulls fans in this important demographic. We are especially pleased that WRTO-AM will broadcast every pre and regular season home game representing a dramatic increase in the number of Bulls games broadcast in Spanish."
Doug Levy, Vice President and General Manager for Univision Radio Chicago, said in a statement: "We are thrilled to extend our partnership with the Chicago Bulls through the 2014-2015 season. Being able to expand our broadcast schedule to include every home game from preseason to postseason allows us to deepen the connection between our Hispanic audience and its favorite NBA team. It also allows us to provide some very exciting and dynamic marketing solutions to our client advertisers. We could not be more proud to be working with a first-class organization like the Chicago Bulls."
