MAAC Basketball Games To Be Aired Internationally

Edison, NJ - The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) has announced that, starting in February, all MAAC men's and women's basketball games will be made available for international steaming. All MAAC games are currently broadcast to anybody within the continental United States via ESPN3 and ESPN+. The announcement comes as part of the MAAC's contractual agreement with SIDEARM Sports, the conference's website provider.
 
"This is a fantastic opportunity for the conference to reach fans, families, alumni and recruits who are currently overseas," said MAAC Commissioner Rich Ensor. "These people deserve to see their friends and families play every night, and this agreement with the MAAC member schools' ESPN Production staffs and SIDEARM Sports will allow them to do so. It has always been a long-term goal of the MAAC to provide increased access for international markets, and this is the next step in providing content to that market."

"Distributing the MAAC's live video content on an international streaming platform has been a goal for quite some time, and it is great to see how the MAAC, ESPN and SIDEARM Sports have collaborated to make it happen," added Canisius College Director of Athletics Bill Maher, the chair of the MAAC's Technology Committee. "Every school in the MAAC recruits and currently has international students throughout their programs. This agreement allows the MAAC to continue to expand that international footprint and engage the family and friends of current and future student-athletes, while also providing former student-athletes who live and work internationally to follow their alma mater."
 
Per the agreement, conference institutions will make their games available via the MAAC's SIDEARM account and will be housed on MAAC.TV. Games will be blacked out to those within the U.S., who instead will continue to find their games on the ESPN family of networks. Games broadcast on ESPN3 are currently available for international streaming in Europe, Africa, the Pacific Rim, and the Caribbean.  
 
"I'm excited that the MAAC is embarking on this partnership with SIDEARM to share our incredible brand of MAAC basketball internationally," said Manhattan College women's basketball coach Heather Vulin. "This will be wonderful for our current international players to have their friends and family follow their journeys. I sincerely appreciate the leadership of the MAAC for making this happen. I feel this will help our entire league to continue to attract international talent."
 
About the 2021 Hercules Tires MAAC Men's and Women's Basketball Championships:
The MAAC Men's and Women's Basketball Championships return to New Jersey on March 9-13, 2021 at Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. To stay up to date on MAAC basketball, visit http://maacsports.com/basketball and follow @MAACHoops on Twitter.

About Time Out for Black Lives:
Time Out for Black Lives aims to inspire and educate youth, athletes, families and fans. The initiative has an interactive website where coaches and student-athletes from MAAC basketball programs contribute their time and resources to read children's books in entertaining videos, all focusing on Black culture, history, music and myths. The program comes as part of the MAAC's United for Justice campaign that was announced over the summer.  For more information, visit timeoutforblacklives.com.

About the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference:
With 11 institutions strongly bound by the sound principles of quality and integrity in academics and excellence in athletics, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) celebrates its 40th year of competition during the 2020-21 academic year. Current conference members include: Canisius, Fairfield, Iona, Manhattan, Marist, Monmouth, Niagara, Quinnipiac, Rider, Saint Peter's and Siena.