Quinnipiac Athletics and WWAX-TV announced a partnership that aims to bring a new audience to Quinnipiac University sports by broadcasting Bobcats’ games on the channel.
The sports that WWAX will broadcast include men’s and women’s soccer, women’s volleyball and several others.
WWAX launched six months ago under Gray Television and is a partner station to WFSB, the New Haven area’s CBS affiliate.
Michael Kassa, associate vice president for corporate sponsorships, said this will benefit Quinnipiac and its students by offering increased visibility for its athletes. In addition, the partnership will offer opportunities for students to submit their own content, primarily through student media organizations. WWAX will then have more content for collegiate athletics created by local students.
Dana Neves, a regional vice president of Gray Media, the company that owns WWAX, and the general manager of WFSB, was excited about the partnership.Neves’ primary responsibility as general manager is focusing on programming for WWAX, so she expressed her gratitude that the deal was able to go through so quickly.
“I want to be complimentary of Quinnipiac, frankly,” Neves said. “When presented the opportunity, they met with us right away. They pulled in so many different departments. To have a university with a laser focus on benefitting the students, in turn, benefits us too because we’re getting some great content from them.”
Zachary Soulier, associate athletic director for partnerships at Quinnipiac, said he found the negotiation process incredibly easy.
“I can tell you just from being in those conversations, it was a sort of love at first sight,” Soulier said. “They were looking for quality local content. And of course, in (the) university, we’re always trying to provide students with real-life opportunities. Then also, showcasing the premier talent that we have within our student athletes.”
On the athletics side, WWAX plans to rebroadcast Quinnipiac games, with members of Quinnipiac’s student media organizations handling all production and on-air responsibilities.
However, Soulier said it was too early in the process to iron out exactly what content the station will produce beyond athletics.
Kassa shed light on a few possibilities to get student media organizations in on the action.
“Some other opportunities could be as simple as rebroadcasting the (Q30 News) telecast a couple days a week,” Kassa said. “Another could be looking at some more long-form content like longer student documentaries, longer-form stories, what have you, WWAX would certainly entertain the opportunity of putting those on the air as well.”
On the other side of the table, Neves echoed a similar sentiment. She said she views this deal in two parts, one definite side handling the athletics, and another, more vague side handling future projects outside the sports space.
“My hope is that we start airing documentary pieces, campus news segments, maybe a campus magazine show on this channel to showcase the entire communications department,” Neves said. “Between the people that are in it, and the work they do, we haven’t ironed all of it out. The university and our side all have great ideas, but we’re taking baby steps.”
Regardless of the details, everyone surrounding the partnership made sure to mention one thing: involvement in the partnership will benefit students years down the line.
“We’re in the process of building a strong foundation at the moment, and it’s really sort of boundless in the way that this can grow and the opportunities for our students,” Soulier said. “They’ll provide us awesome exposure on a continuing level with all of our different athletics events.”
