UM Curators News Conference on Big 12 Membership

The University of Missouri Board of Curators met to discuss the future of the Missouri Tigers and the possibility of conference exploration on October 5, 2011. KOMU had continuous coverage of the event throughout the day, airing in the newscasts at 4 PM, 5 PM, 6 PM, 9 PM and 10 PM as well an exclusive special report live cut-in at 7 PM. Throughout the day I acted as supervising producer communicating the happenings in St. Louis between all producers, reporters, anchors and various members of KOMU faculty and staff.

At 5 PM we aired our team coverage of the news conference with live reporter Todd Tumminia in St. Louis, Missouri where the meeting was taking place and live reporter Blake Hanson in Columbia, Missouri outside a local sports bar gathering fan reactions.

For the news conference, we offered live streaming on KOMU.com and used a CoverItLive fan interactive conversation monitored by KOMU’s New Media Director Jen Lee Reeves. Both of these areas got more than 5,800 hits leading up to the time of our special report.

During the news conference, Curators President announced Missouri would be able to look at other conferences and Chancellor Brady Deaton had stepped down from his position as Big 12 Chairman to focus on the future of the University of Missouri – Columbia. I continued to work as supervising producer and worked with KOMU Sports Director Chris Gervino to put together a recap of the main points, which aired at the top of both newscasts.

UM Curators Team Coverage: Mizzou in Kansas City

The University of Missouri Board of Curators met again on October 21, 2011 to discuss the future of Mizzou, how this could affect Kansas City, Missouri and the rivalry between Missouri and Kansas. KOMU Sports Director Chris Gervino and I worked on creating content for the A Block. We focused on what fans were saying in Kansas City and Columbia. We coordinated with the news producers, who were working with their reporters. On top of that Chris and I were also dealing with our high school football Friday Night Fever coverage.

Southeastern Conference Slip Up/West Virginia Joins Big 12 Conference

On October 28, 2011, more controversy developed involving conference realignment. The day started by the Southeastern Conference accidentally releasing a statement on their website welcoming Missouri as the 14th member of the conference. The announcement was quickly removed from the site and the conference claimed it was an accident.

Later in the afternoon the Big 12 Conference announced the addition of West Virginia, who would replaced the Texas A&M Aggies for the 2012 season. In a statement the Big 12 stated they were looking forward to the 2012 season with all members of the conference except Missouri.

Below is the segment I produced for KOMU 8 News at Five.

Missouri to the Southeastern Conference Announcement

On November 6, 2011, the Southeastern Conference and the University of Missouri announced that the Tigers would be heading to the SEC and become the 14th member of the conference effective July 1, 2012.

KOMU broke into programming for two hours to cover Missouri’s move to the SEC.

Here is the live announcement that aired both on KOMU and KOMU.com.

Toss to the Announcement

Announcement with Missouri and SEC Officials

I worked with Chris Gervino on creating a package about the history of Missouri in the Big 12 Conference. The University of Missouri was in the same conference for more than 100 years, dating back to 1907 when the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association was formed. We created the following package on the conference journey from the MVIAA through the unofficial names of the Big Six, Big Seven to the official Big Eight Conference all the way to the Big 12 in 2011.