Maine’s high school basketball tournament will have a new television and internet home in February.

Maine Principals’ Association executive director Dick Durost announced Tuesday morning that Maine Public Broadcasting Network (MPBN) will not carry or stream the regional semifinals or championships this winter.

Durost added that bids to broadcast those games, as well as the state finals, will be accepted through Friday, Nov. 13.

“Our major television partner for most of the MPA basketball tournament has recently informed us that, due to a lack of equipment and manpower, they will no longer be able to televise any regional semifinal or final games,” Durost wrote. “Therefore, we are opening up those games as well as state games for interested providers.”

The announcement substantially ends a 36-year relationship between the MPA and MPBN.

Public television began broadcasting the Class B, C and D North (formerly East) games in Bangor beginning in 1979. It added the companion South (West) games from Augusta in 1994.

Cory Morrissey, MPBN’s director of marketing and underwriting, cited the addition of a fifth enrollment classification as the impetus for the decision.

“We just don’t have the ability,” Morrissey said. “To do what we were doing, we would beg, borrow and steal equipment. We rented stuff.”

Semifinal and final games actually have taken place simultaneously in Augusta, Bangor and Portland for several years.

The MPA moved the Class A North tournament from Bangor to Augusta and the Class B South tournament from Augusta to Portland in 2005. It recognized the changing face of those divisions and results in shorter travel distances for a majority of teams in each pod.

Class B South broadcasts since that transition have been a joint effort between MPBN and Time Warner Cable.

“If we were to provide the same coverage we were providing for 42 games, now with (Class) AA, we would be talking close to 70 games,” Morrissey said. “And I understand why they’re doing it, for competitive fairness and all that. It just doesn’t work for us.”

Class AA was added to represent the largest schools this year, adding games to the schedule in Augusta and Portland. The 2016 semifinals will begin Feb. 16.

Morrissey said that MPBN plans to submit a bid to carry the 10 state championship games because those contests will be held at two sites instead of three.

“We are still committed to it,” Morrissey said. “I don’t know Dick Durost wull handle the bids, but we are 100 percent hoping that the MPA will allow us to show the 10 games Friday and Saturday, rebroadcast them Sunday and have a championship weekend celebrating basketball.”

In a separate interview with the Bangor Daily News, Morrissey noted that the broadcasts cost the company $20,000 to $30,000 each year but were part of MPBN’s mission to “be out there in the Maine communities in as many ways as possible.”

Bids will be accepted for 18 semifinal and final games in Classes AA, A and B South at Cross Insurance Arena in Portland, 18 more in Classes B, C and D North at Cross Insurance Center in Bangor, and 24 games in Classes AA and A North and C and D South at Augusta Civic Center.

“I’d love to do it. I love basketball also,” Morrissey said. “MPBN is basically 82 people. We had people from our finance team running cameras. Everybody likes doing it.”

koakes@sunjournal.com

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