SPRINGFIELD, Ohio - Wittenberg University Tiger sports fans have more reason than ever to be excited about the opening kickoff to the 2003-04 school year. Now anyone, anywhere can listen in on all the action - live via a new, state-of-the-art Internet feed made possible by alumni gifts and the university's athletic department.

Wittenberg has partnered with Stretch Internet to make selected sporting events available around the world. The new age in Wittenberg athletic broadcasts begins Saturday, Sept. 6, with the WULM broadcast of the Tiger football game at Albion College. Kickoff is scheduled for 1 p.m., with pre-game and post-game coverage also included in the online broadcast.

Wittenberg fans will not have to pay to listen to broadcasts, and anyone with a computer and an Internet connection will be able to log in and listen without risk of getting bumped off due to listener limitations. Previously, Wittenberg utilized a free Internet broadcast set-up that allowed a maximum of 25 listeners at one time and frequently had poor sound quality due to transmission and encoding problems.

The new service has been partially funded by gifts from alumni who are members of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. Alumni of this former Wittenberg fraternity mobilized in recent weeks to help make this exciting new partnership possible.

Stretch Internet utilizes QuickTime, Apple's premiere multimedia suite of products. Prospective listeners need only to download the free QuickTime Player (it's already installed on most computers sold in the last two years), and they're ready to listen to Wittenberg games live. QuickTime has already reached more than 100 million MacIntosh and PC users and works just like other popular multimedia applications such as Windows Media Player or Real Player.

Initially, Wittenberg football, men's basketball and women's basketball games will be the offered via Stretch Internet, but it is hoped that other campus and athletic events will be broadcast in the future. WULM, the only radio station originating from Springfield and the commercial radio home to Wittenberg Tiger sports for decades, will broadcast football, men's basketball and women's basketball games. WULM Sports Director and Voice of the Tigers Marty Bannister is back on the microphone again in the 2003-04 school year.


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