The Owls volleyball squad will join the list of KSU athletics teams to appear on ESPN when it hosts the Jacksonville Dolphins on Oct. 4.
In a partnership between the Atlantic Sun Conference and ESPN, 16 A-Sun women’s volleyball matches will air on ESPN3, the network’s digital channel, during the 2013 season.
Of the matches, four of them will feature KSU, three of which will be played in the Convocation Center. Along with the contest against the Dolphins, ESPN3 will also be on KSU campus for the Oct. 25 match against Stetson and the Nov. 1 match against Lipscomb.
KSU will also appear on the network when it visits USC Upstate on Oct. 22.
“The strong and growing relationship between ESPN and the A-Sun lets us be a leader in direct delivery of campus produced digital content,” said A-Sun commissioner Ted Gumbart. “Last season
we had a record number of ESPN live broadcasts including growing exposure in volleyball, basketball, baseball and softball.”
For KSU, which has only been a Division I school for four years, the increased exposure means a continued elevation in the brand.
“We are very proud to provide the well-deserved exposure for our talented student-athletes, their teams and the A-Sun institutions. We appreciate ESPN’s commitment to our conference-wide campus production initiative, and we look forward to launching live broadcasts this year from Kennesaw State,” KSU Director of Athletics Vaughn Williams said.
Aside from landing on ESPN3, KSU has been in the broadcasted spotlight much more often in the past few years. In 2011, KSU Soccer Stadium, now named Fifth Third Bank Stadium, hosted the Division I Women’s College Cup, which was the national final four for women’s soccer. The tournament broadcast live on ESPN2.
As well, the men’s basketball team has made brief appearances on regionally broadcast television in non- conference matchups against larger schools, including a home upset against Georgia Tech in 2010.
KSU’s volleyball team will be competing in its first season under newly acquired head coach Keith Schunzel. Schunzel was hired on Jan. 28 to replace Karen Weatherington, who went 16-17 and 5-13 in the conference with the Owls in her final season.
