NYRR RELEASES DETAILS OF NEW TELEVISION DEAL
By David Monti
(c) 2011 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved (Used by permission)

NEW YORK (09-Jan) -- New York Road Runners officials released here today the details of a new five-year television deal struck between the nation's largest not-for-profit race organizer and WABC-TV and ESPN. The basic framework of the deal, which includes live national television coverage of the ING New York City Marathon, had been reported last week by reporter Ken Belson in the New York Times.

"The ING New York City Marathon is one of the greatest spectacles in all of sport, and today's announcement is a huge step forward in bringing all of the event's passion and excitement into homes, live, across the country," said the Road Runners' president and CEO Mary Wittenberg in a media release.

The marathon, the world's largest, will be televised live nationally on ESPN2 and available through WatchESPN from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Eastern time, and in New York on WABC-TV and 7online.com from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., officials said. That same afternoon, the ABC network will broadcast nationally a two-hour Marathon highlight show. The agreement begins with this year's race on Sunday, November 4.

Moreover, the partnership will also feature coverage of ING New York City Marathon-weekend events and other marquee NYRR races throughout the year, as well as quarterly public service announcements on WABC-TV that highlight the Road Runners' efforts to encourage running as part of a child's healthy lifestyle. The deal reunites NYRR with ABC, which carried the first live national broadcast of the Marathon in 1981 and where it aired until 1993. In recent years, the broadcasts had been on WNBC-TV locally, and on the NBC network nationally via tape delay.