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AUDIO POLICY
NCAA Championships (All Divisions)

Westwood One owns the exclusive national audio rights to all 90 NCAA championships as well as the Men’s NIT and Women’s BIT. If Westwood One exercises its right to nationally broadcast an NCAA championship event via radio and/or other audio platforms (internet, mobile, station, aggregated audio apps, Sirius XM, etc.) then each official university or college radio station will be the only stations granted the right to broadcast a separate signal. These stations must contact Learfield, (Mike Dodson - mike.dodson@learfield.com or 859-226-4390; Cindy Johnson - cindy.johnson@learfield.com or 859-226-4225) to obtain the broadcast rights.

Note: A separate form will need to be completed for each round or day of coverage. These forms may be completed in advance for games that may or may not take place depending on your school's advancement in the Championships.

1. A rights fee will be charged for commercial broadcasts and rebroadcasts of any NCAA championship round/game(s). The rights fee will be waived for non-commercial, university funded, student-run radio stations.

2. No exclusive rights shall be granted, except in those instances when a competing institution shall request such rights for a station or network that contracted for exclusive coverage of the institution's regular-season games. Such exclusive rights then shall be restricted to the markets where exclusivity existed during the regular season games. In the instance that two universities or colleges have radio stations in the same market, then exclusive rights shall not be granted in that market.

3. The university or college station of each competing institution, or the station designated by that institution as its official station, shall be guaranteed broadcast space. Applications from other stations will be referred to the on-site media coordinator/host sports information director and space will be made available as the facilities permit. The NCAA reserves the right to deny radio stations the right to broadcast NCAA championship events.

4. All stations broadcasting any round/game of an NCAA championship shall be required to submit a completed audio agreement to Mike Dodson/Cindy Johnson at Learfield. If the broadcast is being distributed via the Internet or mobile devices, you must submit the direct link to the audio player. The audio agreement must be fully completed and submitted online in advance of the round/game that will be broadcast. Please note, if the form is not fully completed, rights will not be granted. The form shall be submitted for each round/game that a station wishes to broadcast.

Learfield will authorize the form and submit it to the on-site media coordinator/host sports information director. Facilities may not be reserved until the media coordinator/host sports information director has received an authorized audio agreement from Learfield. On-site personnel from the radio station also should retain a copy of the audio agreement for reference. This agreement is the .pdf file that will be automatically generated upon completion of the online form.

5. Westwood One may elect not to sublicense to a radio station the right to produce and distribute a local audio broadcast, unless such radio station broadcasts a minimum of fifty percent (50%) of the regular season games (excluding conference tournament games) played by the NCAA institution of such sport for which the sublicense is sought. However, if such prospective sublicensee’s FCC license is within the MSA (as defined by Nielsen) of the participating NCAA institution’s main campus, Westwood One shall sublicense the right to produce and distribute a local audio broadcast to such sublicensee, even if such number is less than fifty percent (50%). If such sublicense is granted, sublicensee shall not further sublicense or distribute such broadcasts beyond the MSA.

6. All originating stations will be invoiced for rights fees associated with these broadcasts by Learfield. A fee will be charged for each affiliate station of the network as well. Stations will be charged for each game of the championship in which it broadcasts.

If the originating station or any station within the network intends to stream the broadcast over the Internet via their station's Web site or any other third-party Web site, or provides such audio for distribution by any mobile application, then an additional fee will be charged.

Note: The station streaming the broadcast is required to supply a link back to the official NCAA Championships Web site, NCAA.com. The per game radio, per game Internet and per game mobile rights fees are as follows:

A. Division I championships (excluding men's and women's basketball, men’s NIT, women’s BIT and baseball)
Originating commercial station - $200
All affiliates joining a network - $100 (per station)
Non-commercial station feeding a commercial station - $200
Additional Streaming Fee (desktop and mobile) - $100
Commercial Streaming-Only fee - $200

B. *Division I Men's Basketball Championship
Originating commercial station - $1,400
All affiliates joining a network - $300 (per station)
Non-commercial station that feeds a commercial station - $850

All alternate audio platforms for the Division I Men's Basketball Championship are handled exclusively by Westwood One. No other radio entity is allowed to stream audio online or on mobile apps, nor provide their audio to satellite radio for this particular NCAA Championship.

C. *Division I Women's Basketball Championship
Originating commercial station - $300
All affiliates joining a network - $150 (per station)
Non-Commercial originating station that feeds a commercial station - $300
Additional Streaming Fee (desktop and mobile) - $175
Commercial Streaming-Only Fee (desktop and mobile) - $300

D. *Men's NIT Originating commercial station - $600
All affiliates joining a network - $250 (per station)
Non-Commercial originating station that feeds a commercial station - $600
Additional Streaming Fee (desktop and mobile) - $400
Commercial Streaming-Only fee - $600

E. *Women’s BIT Originating commercial station - $100
All affiliates joining a network - $75 (per station)
Non-Commercial originating station that feeds a commercial station - $100
Additional Streaming Fee (desktop and mobile) - $75
Commercial Streaming-Only fee - $100

F. *Division I Baseball Championship
Originating commercial station - $300
All affiliates joining a network - $150 (per station)
Non-Commercial originating station that feeds a commercial station - $300
Additional Streaming Fee (desktop and mobile) - $150
Commercial Streaming-Only Fee (desktop and mobile) - $300

**This information should be forwarded to your radio rights holder. Originating university networks will receive a different NCAA Audio Agreement for the Division I Men's and Women's Basketball Championships. Contact Learfield directly at the contact information for Mike Dodson and Cindy Johnson listed above.

G. Division II and III championships
Originating commercial station - $60
All affiliates joining a network - $30 (per station)
Additional Streaming Fee (desktop and mobile) - $50
Commercial Streaming-Only Fee (desktop and mobile) - $60

            Note: A rights fee will be waived for any non-commercial, university funded, student-run radio station.

            The rights fee will be waived for Internet-only broadcast as long as there are no commercials, sponsored elements or underwriting spots within the broadcast. In addition, there cannot be any advertising on the audio player itself. Any of the aforementioned circumstances will result in a rights fee for an Internet-only broadcast.

            At the conclusion of each championship Learfield will invoice rights fees, except for the Men’s NIT Post-season Tournament and Division I Men's and Women's Basketball Championships. All rights fees will be collected in advance for these tournaments/championships.

7. A participating or host institution shall make no additional charge or receive any additional consideration for the rights accorded hereunder to the originating station(s) or network.

8. All advertising is subject to the current NCAA Advertising and Promotional Guidelines. These guidelines help to maintain and assure a standard of appropriate advertising on NCAA championship broadcasts.  Please note that these are subject to change and a current version is always available at NCAA.com/media.

9. The NCAA reserves the right of final approval for all advertising in any championship.

10. Any station that does not broadcast a game of a championship, after contract for such space, shall be required to pay a forfeiture fee of 50 percent of the initial rights fee for that particular championship.

11. Only the NCAA Radio Network banner may be displayed at the championship site.

12. The commercial format used by radio stations shall conform to acceptable broadcast standards to ensure a quality broadcast.

13. Non-rights holding radio stations/networks may report on the events of the championship at any time (other than on a live basis from courtside) for broadcast within the framework of general and sports newscasts. Only a station/network that has purchased rights from the NCAA may air a live description of any competition. Non-rights holders originating live reports from an NCAA championship venue must adhere to the following guidelines when Westwood One is broadcasting the NCAA Championship event.

  A.

Live description of any game in progress is prohibited. Programming shall originate only from the media workroom.

  B.

Live programming may not originate from inside the arena on game days from the beginning of the contest at the site each day until the end of the last game at the site each day.

  C.

Agencies that do not own play-by-play rights but are affiliates of Westwood One or a participating institution's network may generate live programming (e.g., news reports, call-in show participation) for a maximum of ten minutes per hour at times other than the period described in 14B.

  D.

Agencies that are not affiliates of Westwood One or the schools' networks may generate live programming for a maximum of one minute per hour at times other than the period described in 14B.

14. Non-rights holding radio stations/networks shall not be allowed to originate any ancillary programming (e.g., call-in shows) from the arena during the championship.

15. This policy only applies to the current championship season and is subject to change next season.

16. If you have any questions regarding this policy, please contact Nate Flannery at the NCAA national office (phone: 317-917-6523 or e-mail: nflannery@ncaa.org), Mike Eaby at Westwood One (phone: 240-461-2285 or e-mail: meaby@westwoodone.com), or Mike Dodson at Learfield (phone: 859-226-4390 or e-mail: mike.dodson@learfield.com), or Cindy Johnson at Learfield (phone: 859-226-4225 or e-mail: cindy.johnson@learfield.com).