Radio-TV notebook: Virginia Tech radio network has new Blacksburg station (2024)

For the first time since the mid-1990s, Virginia Tech football fans in the New River Valley will not be able to listen to the Hokies on 105.3 FM this season.

The Virginia Tech Sports Network has a new Blacksburg radio station. The network’s new flagship affiliate is ESPN Blacksburg, which can be heard on WPIN-AM 810 and WPIN-FM 93.1 and 97.1.

Those stations will carry Tech football, men’s and women’s basketball and baseball games, along with the football and basketball coaches’ shows. The 93.1 FM signal is the one that fans will be able to listen to while they are attending games at Lane Stadium.

The Tech action and shows will also be simulcast on WPIN’s sister stations in the New River Valley, WZFM-AM 1430 and WZFM-FM 101.3 and 105.9.

All five stations were bought this summer by Underdog Media, which is awaiting FCC approval of the sale.

Tech football and men’s basketball games had been on the radio dial at 105.3 (WBRW/”The Bear”) since the mid-1990s. Tech women’s basketball games were on WVHK-FM 100.7 (which is now called WVXL-FM) in recent years, while Tech baseball games were on WRAD FM 101.7 and 103.5. All five stations are owned by the New River Radio Group. Tech broadcasting director Zach Mackey said the network is excited about the change in Blacksburg affiliates.

“It just made sense. All Tech athletics are going to be able to be on ESPN Blacksburg, all on the same frequency,” said Mackey, who is also the men’s basketball radio play-by-play announcer, the sideline reporter for the football radio broadcasts and the co-host of the coaches’ shows. “They told us they were interested and they put together a really nice offer.

“Everyone on our side and everyone in athletics thought that it made sense for us to make the switch. … It could get confusing sometimes for fans to know exactly … where to go, so this gives us the ability to all be on that same ESPN Blacksburg.”

Learfield used to hold Tech’s athletic multimedia rights. This is the first school year that Playfly Sports has those rights. So Playfly had to re-sign all of Tech’s radio affiliates this year.

Mackey said the network wanted to keep the New River Radio Group stations among its affiliates.

“We were in back and forth communications with them, but … we couldn’t come to an agreement,” Mackey said.

Paul Johnson, the vice president and general manager of the New River Radio Group, said his group wanted to remain with the network. But Johnson said there was an issue with Playfly over how much time his group would get in the broadcasts for local commercials and how much the network would charge his group for that time.

“At some point we just said, ‘Look, here’s our offer: for this amount of inventory, we’ll give you this amount of money,” Johnson said. “They decided to go with somebody else. We don’t think that their solution is a good solution. WBRW/The Bear covers a wide path of Southwest Virginia. They’re (now) going to be on a group of little AM stations and FM translators.”

Underdog Media, which is based in North Carolina, owns a radio station in Wytheville that is a Tech affiliate. So Underdog general manager Chuck Marsh was interested in having his company’s new New River Valley stations on the network as well.

“It’s absolutely an honor,” said Marsh, a former Roanoke radio personality. “It’s a pretty sweet deal for us.”

The New River Radio Group also owns a station in Charlottesville that had been a Tech affiliate. That station will no longer be on the Tech network, either.

“When they didn’t go with us here, we decided not to go with them in Charlottesville,” Johnson said.

All the rest of the Tech radio affiliates remain the same as last year, including WFIR-AM/FM in Roanoke.

The New River Radio Group has not given up local sports programming. WRAD will continue to air Radford men’s and women’s basketball, as well as Rick Watson’s sports talk show.

Talk show returns

The Virginia Tech action won’t be the only local sports programming on ESPN Blacksburg.

WPIN-AM and WPIN-FM this week brought back “The Drive,” which last aired in December. The sports talk show airs from 4-6 p.m. weekdays.

The show was hosted by Paul VanWagoner from 2016-23. He left ESPN Blacksburg for a sales job.

The new host is Virginia Tech graduate Nels Williams, 22, who served as VanWagoner’s co-host last year.

“Now that ESPN Blacksburg is the flagship station of the Virginia Tech Sports Network, we will … easier have access to (Tech) coaches and players, as well as (Tech announcers), Zack Mackey, Evan Hughes, Bill Roth and Mike Burnop,” Williams said. “We’ll be focusing heavily on local sports, such as Blacksburg and Christiansburg high school football and just Virginia Tech in general.”

Wells mourns Glover

Former WDBJ-7 sports anchor and sports reporter Zac Glover died of cancer on Aug. 18 at his home in his native Kentucky. He was 38 years old.

“Anybody that knew him or worked with him is pretty devastated,” said former WDBJ sports director Travis Wells, who worked with Glover at the CBS affiliate.

Glover worked for WDBJ from December 2014 to April 2018. He joined WDBJ as a sports reporter and substitute sports anchor before being promoted to weekend sports anchor. He left WDBJ to return to his home state to work as a financial advisor.

“Some of the sacrifices that you have to make to be in TV weren’t as worth it anymore,” Glover said in a 2018 interview about leaving WDBJ. “I miss my family and I want to see them a little bit more. And me and my wife, we would love to travel. … It’s going to open up a lot more possibilities in terms of living life a little bit more.”

Wells said he will remember the “upbeat, positive, enthusiastic energy” Glover brought to WDBJ every day.

“I don’t think the guy ever had a bad day,” said Wells, who is now an assistant athletic director at Virginia Tech. “If I was having a bad day, it took about 30 seconds talking to Zac to turn that around.”

Wells said Glover was a talented sports videographer who had an “enthusiasm for life.”

“He immersed himself in what he was doing, immersed himself in the community,” Wells said.