Sports: MSU Teams Up with WJR-AM (760) Radio

            MSU and News/Talk 760 WJR radio of Detroit have announced a five-year agreement that, in the words of MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon, “represents a mutually beneficial partnership with the Great Voice of the Great Lakes.”

            WJR will become the flagship radio station for MSU, effective in the 2006-07 seasons, announced Simon and Michael Fezzey, president and general manager of News/Talk 760 WJR, at a press conference. WJR will bring live coverage of Spartan football and men’s basketball games produced and distributed by MSU. In addition, WJR will broadcast weekly in-season call in-shows with Spartan basketball coach Tom Izzo and football coach John L. Smith.

            Fezzey emphasized that “the collective clout” of WJR and MSU throughout the state and beyond will serve listeners in “historic” ways. He noted that WJR was MSU’s flagship station from 1963 to 1976.

            “MSU developed an exciting partnership plan with WJR that proved beneficial to both,” he explained.  “Combining assets to reach and serve people is at the heart of our respective missions.  And we are impressed that almost 90 percent of MSU’s undergraduate students come from the state of Michigan. There is great momentum here­in athletics, academics and research­as MSU celebrates its sesquicentennial. We look forward to being a part of it all.”

            “MSU’s relationship with WJR in recent years has been a valued one and athletics now becomes part of that relationship,” Simon said. “Our faculty have been regular guests on Paul W. Smith’s, Frank Beckmann’s, Warren Pierce’s and Mitch Albom’s shows. I am personally aware of the impressive reach and breadth of WJR ‘talk’ through my own appearances. Expanding this relationship is a prime example of the Team MSU concept­—one area negotiating to benefit the entire university.

            “As we tell our story to the state, region and nation­and as that story continues to build momentum with students, alumni, donors, policy makers and others­we really can say this is a partnership of a Great Voice and a Great Choice.”

            Ron Mason, Spartan athletics director, said WJR also has the rights to broadcast additional MSU athletic programming, and that MSU and WJR will pursue “creative and substantial opportunities” to host events that leverage MSU’s total-university assets.

            “We pursued a relationship that would optimally reach, inform and serve the thousands of fans and supporters of MSU; that was our consistent aim,” Mason said. “This will be MSU outreach at its qualitative and quantitative best.”