The Maine Public Broadcasting Network announces that the Maine Principals’ Association has awarded MPBN the television broadcast and streaming rights to the boys’ and girls’ State Finals basketball games in in 2017, 2018 and 2019. MPBN will provide coverage of the AA, A, B, C and D class state championship games across the entire state.

MPBN will produce and broadcast “Championship Weekend” that includes live coverage of all the Friday and Saturday games and delivering them to MPBN’s state-wide television audience as well as rebroadcasting the games in their entirety that Sunday.

“We are very excited to partner with the Maine Principals’ Association for the next three years and continue our tradition of covering high school basketball in Maine and thank them for this opportunity. Offering basketball coverage to communities across Maine is very important to us as an organization,” said Mark Vogelzang, MPBN’s chief executive officer, in a news release. “Last year’s “Championship Weekend” format allowed us to showcase the top teams and student-athletes competing for their schools and their communities across the entire state on Friday and Saturday and also rebroadcast the championship games statewide that Sunday. We repeatedly heard from viewers and basketball fans that the chance to catch games that they missed earlier in the weekend on that Sunday was really appreciated.”

MPA Executive Director Dick Durost said: “This agreement continues the decades-long relationship between the MPA and MPBN. We are pleased to continue to meet the state championship needs of Maine high school basketball fans everywhere for another three years.”

The State Finals playoff schedule will include games taking place in Portland, Augusta, and Bangor. MPBN will announce its coverage schedule in early February, 2017.