Jan. 17, 2006

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GREENVILLE, N.C. - The East Carolina Department of Athletics and ISP Sports, the national leader in the collegiate sports marketing industry, have reached an agreement that provides the company with the exclusive multimedia rights to Pirate Athletics effective July 1, 2006.

The partnership, which guarantees the university an annual rights fee plus additional considerations based upon revenue generated by ISP, will encompass all sales and marketing opportunities associated with ECU sports, including radio and television programming, game programs and other athletics publications, signage in all campus athletic venues, and at-event corporate promotions and hospitality functions.

A three-person staff of marketing professionals with offices at the university will be responsible for the ISP Sports sales efforts on behalf of the Pirates. The group will be headed by Meghan Molnar, former general manager of the ISP sales team at Vanderbilt. She will be joined by Craig Curtis, current assistant athletics director for marketing at ECU, and a third person to be named later.

In addition, the agreement calls for the creation of a director of external operations position within the athletics department funded by the ISP agreement. That person will oversee the development of the new relationship and coordinate all activities involving ISP Sports with areas such as fund-raising, ticketing, media relations and promotions.

"The partnership with ISP Sports allows ECU Athletics to join a group of elite institutions with similar goals and aspirations as well as helping to maximize the value of our marketing efforts," East Carolina Director of Athletics Terry Holland said. "The partnership greatly increases the focus on the marketing of ECU and ECU Athletics since the ISP agreement will provide the funding for five total positions - three ISP employees, the director of external operations and Jeff Charles' position, who will remain in his role as the 'Voice of the Pirates'.

"This agreement signals a new day in ECU Athletics and provides us with opportunities that we have not had before," Holland added. "I have the highest personal and professional respect for Ben Sutton and the team he has built at ISP."

East Carolina joins an impressive group of 27 major NCAA athletic programs that are aligned with ISP Sports. That list includes such nationally-prominent schools as Auburn, Clemson, Cincinnati, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Miami (Fla.), Pittsburgh, Syracuse, UCLA, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest, as well as ECU's fellow Conference USA members Houston, Marshall, Southern Miss, Tulane, UAB and UCF.

"We are thrilled to have East Carolina as part of our ISP family of schools," Ben Sutton, President and CEO of ISP said. "There has always been tremendous enthusiasm and support surrounding Pirate Athletics, and now with the leadership of Terry Holland and the administrative team he is building, the future of the overall program is extremely bright. We are excited to be a part of that future."