CMSportsNet earns national honors for local sports coverage
The 2021 Soccer Wrap-up Show was honored by the Alliance for Community Media Foundation with the Best of Sports Coverage Award.
It has been a fun and exciting first year for me covering Carroll County local sports once again, albeit in a new way.
After more than two decades doing it on the newspaper side, in late August of 2021 I moved into world of digital media with CMSportsNet, the Community Media Center's sports branch. My thanks to the CMC's leaders who helped guide me down an unfamiliar path, but one that had some similar landmarks.
We focused on girls soccer and football last fall, while also covering Carroll Community College men's soccer. When the winter sports season arrived, we headed indoors for boys and girls basketball and wrestling. And this past spring, we returned outdoors for boys and girls lacrosse (and Carroll Lynx men's lacrosse).
At the end of each season, we put together a Sports Wrap-Up Show in our CMC studio to recognize the top athletes, coaches, plays, and games of the year.
And recently, CMSportsNet was recognized for its efforts.
We received a 2022 Hometown Media Award -- the Best of Sports Coverage -- from the Alliance for Community Media Foundation for CMSportsNet’s 2021 Soccer Wrap-up Show.
The in-studio show, co-hosted by myself sports columnist Mike Preston, looked back at the Carroll County high school girls and Carroll Lynx men's soccer season. The program featured
interviews with top players and coaches, game highlights, statistics, and more.
Throughout the 2021 season, CMSportsNet provided a mixture of live full game coverage, game highlights, athlete of the week and a variety of other feature reports. Coverage was broadcast on cable channel HD-1086, posted on the CMC’s website and shared on social media platforms.
All of CMSportsNet’s coverage is available for viewing online at CMSportsNet.com. You can read more about the award here.
Each year, nearly 1,000 entries are submitted to the Hometown Media Awards. These entries, or programs, are submitted and evaluated on several factors resulting in over 100 award winners. A panel of judges from the industry evaluate the entries. Awards are presented to the most creative programs that address community needs, develop diverse community involvement, challenge conventional commercial television formats and move viewers to experience television in a different way.
“The Hometown Media Awards celebrate both the excellence of work and the diversity of media that appears on community channels being produced around the country. The ACM Foundation is proud of their achievement and of how they represent their communities in their work,” said Mike Wassenaar, president & CEO, Alliance for Community Media.
Planning is underway for CMSportsNet’s coverage of the 2022 fall sports season including; high school football, boys and girls soccer and college soccer coverage.
There are numerous volunteer and sponsorship opportunities available for individuals and businesses in the community to be a part of CMSportsNet’s local coverage. For more
information contact the Community Media Center at 410-386-4415.
I'm inviting you to take a look back at our award-winning Soccer Wrap-Up Show, and you can find out other season-in-review productions on our website and our YouTube channel.