LCN to televise all Thibodaux High football games this season

Tri-parish residents can watch every snap taken by highly-touted national recruit and Thibodaux High quarterback Trevon Reed and the rest of the Tigers this upcoming season.

The Louisiana Connection Network will air delayed broadcasts of all Thibodaux Tigers football games for the 2009 season including the playoffs if the team advances.

The broadcasts will be “play-to-snap,” where almost all the non-action is edited out except for penalties called by referees.

“We don’t show the huddle. It’s just a quick play-by play game,” said Jaime Johnson, LCN president.

The Gray-based network broadcasted five high school games last year, including the Thibodaux High-Terrebonne High regular season finale that decided the District 8-5A championship. Thibodaux won 62-36.

This is the first time the network has committed to covering an entire prep football season, let alone one high school.

“We had a tremendous response from the fans and the coaching staff at Thibodaux High School,” Johnson said. “They were the first one to come and ask to showcase their team.”

“We have some local businesses that we’re negotiating with now to find out their interest in this season for advertisement,” Johnson added.

After getting a copy of the Thibodaux-Terrebonne broadcast from LCN, Tigers head coach Dennis Lorio liked the production and contacted the network about airing all of Thibodaux’s games in 2009.

“It’s a really exciting opportunity for our kids,” the head coach said. “There are some people who can’t make it out to the games for whatever reason. So a replay with all the action is a good chance to get our kids to get some more exposure. Obviously if you play well, you look forward to watching it, and if you don’t play well it will motivate our kids to do better. I’m sure the kids from the opposing teams will be motivated too.”

The games are scheduled for broadcast on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m. beginning Sept. 5.

In the Tri-parish area, LCN can be seen on Charter Communications channel 109 and Vision Cable channel 41. The network is also available on Cox Communications in Baton Rouge, Lafayette and on the Northshore.

LCN reaches nearly 1 million viewers in 300,000 households in 24 parishes.

The broadcast package kicks off with the Lafourche Parish jamboree at Nicholls State University on Aug. 29. Assumption High plays E.D. White Catholic High at 6 p.m. followed by Thibodaux High versus Vandebilt Catholic High.

James Mills and Craig Hamner will be the play-by-play commentator and color analyst respectively for game broadcasts.

Thibodaux’s season finale at home versus the St. Augustine Purple Knights on Thursday, Nov. 5 will be broadcasted live throughout Louisiana as the Cox Communication/LHSAA Game of Week.

“That’s another great opportunity for exposure for our school, our band and our football team,” Lorio said. “We’re honored. I hope we put some exciting game action on film.”

The home team has the television rights. Thibodaux has secured verbal commitments from three of the four schools it will travel to this season – Assumption, South Terrebonne and Dutchtown.

Lorio said he would contact South Lafourche this week to get the rights to broadcast from Galliano.

Thibodaux High also hopes the television deal will generate some revenue.

The school will sell messages, like those seen in a game program, scrolled across the bottom of the screen during the broadcast. Because the game is shot in a high definition widescreen format, the messages will not block any of the game action.

“We can have 15 of those and it runs four times a game,” Lorio said.

The cost to air a message is $25 a game, or $275 for a season package.

Anyone interested in buying a message during the broadcast should contact Lorio at (985) 446-1990.

If the Thibodaux High broadcasts are successful, Johnson hopes to expand in college football. Only he won’t focus on just one university.

“We want to localize it to mostly colleges to cover more territory,” he said. “It will probably be Nicholls, Southeastern and UL-Lafayette.”