WRAL-TV To Offer Unique ACC Basketball Tournament Coverage

The ACC Tournament begins tonight, March 7, 2002, at the Charlotte Coliseum, and WRAL-TV will be there to cover the event in high-definition. Although Raycom/Jefferson Productions is not offering the games in HD, WRAL-TV will be doing sportscasts and highlights in HD. Also, for the first time ever, WRAL-TV will be airing the post game press conferences live on the WRAL NewsChannel, over the air channel 53.2 and Time Warner Digital cable channel 256.

WRAL-TV Sports Director Bob Holliday and a team from the station are already working from inside the Coliseum and in their satellite truck editing the footage and preparing live shots to be aired during newscasts. Sports Anchor Tom Suiter is also heading to Charlotte to cover the ACC Tournament, as well as Anchor David Crabtree and News Photographer Don Ingle, the news team who will bring stories off the court about news-related items.

Engineering Behind The Scenes KU Truck Driver Tony Gupton worked to position the satellite truck yesterday. Engineering Manager Fred Kelly & Digital Video Production Engineer Mike Mory set up the equipment for WRAL's trip to cover the big event.

"Using our live High Definition set up in Charlotte, we plan live HD coverage during our major late afternoon and evening newscast," said Holliday. "David [Crabtree] and Don [Ingle] will give us the flavor of what it's like to be a spectator at the tournament. Tom [Suiter] and I will have reports on the games with comments from players and coaches. Our game stories will have a special technical quality, because of the high definition pictures and sound Jay [Jennings, Senior Photographer] and Brad [Simmons, Sports Producer] will capture with their cameras."

The tournament begins tonight, with Clemson meeting Florida State in the ACC play-in game. The winner plays league regular season champion Maryland on Friday at 12 noon. NC State plays Virginia at 2:30pm. Duke takes on North Carolina at 7:00pm. Wake Forest meets Georgia Tech in the nightcap at 9:30pm. The four games Friday plus the semi-finals and finals Saturday and Sunday will all be televised on WRAL-TV.

POSTED: March 7, 2002