WANF to televise 16 high school football games this fall

“It’s especially fitting that on our first day of this evolution, we are now able to show four tremendous high school games to Atlanta and — through the Peachtree Sports Network — across Georgia,” WANF vice president/general manager Erik Schrader said in a statement released by Score Atlanta. “Our agenda is local, and we are excited that high school fans across Atlanta and the Peach State will get to see this all on Day One.”

WANF announced earlier this month that it was becoming independent, breaking away from CBS. The station’s owner, Gray Media, has invested heavily in local sports coverage since purchasing WANF along with Peachtree TV (WPCH) from Meredith Corp. in 2021.

The Peachtree Sports Network, also owned by Gray Media, has televised high school games produced by Score Atlanta, a local sports marketing company, the past two seasons. Those games will continue on PSN, but WANF will bring those same games to a broader audience.

“For the first time, it gives us every home in the Atlanta DMA (designated market area), so this is a big deal for us,” Score Atlanta president I.J. Rosenberg said. “We’ll be on every TV set in Atlanta, which is huge, not just for football, but for a lot of our events, like flag football and baseball.”

The four Saturday matchups scheduled for WANF and Peachtree Sports Network are St. Pius vs. Dunwoody (10 a.m.), Brookwood vs. Houston County (1 p.m.), McEachern vs. Walton (4 p.m.) and Douglas County vs. North Gwinnett (7 p.m.).

With WANF on board, the number of games on local Atlanta TV essentially doubles. Georgia Public Broadcasting also televises weekly games during the season, and it broadcasts the state finals at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in December.