Local football fans have a few options they can run in order to watch Saturday night’s television broadcast of the University of Maine’s season-opening game on the road against Nebraska.

Those who are DirecTV or Dish Network satellite TV subscribers can purchase the pay-per-view broadcast of the game for $29.95 and watch it at home; they can buy the entire ESPN GamePlan pay-per-view package for the 2005 season for $99 (when ordered by Saturday, Sept. 2), or they can watch it at a local sports bar or pub like The Sports Arena.

“We’ve never done this before,” said Sports Arena owner Len Cole of Hampden. “Saturdays aren’t normally that big for us, although the NFL games are for us on Sundays. We had some inquiries last year about Saturday college games, but this will be the first fall we’ll gauge the interest here for college games.”

There will be no cover charge and the Sports Arena will open at 11 a.m.

“We’re pretty excited about Saturday. We’re not expecting a record crowd, but I think we’ll have 300 or so people in to watch the game,” said Cole, who has operated his multi-entertainment facility for 10 years (initially as Heritage Bowling Lanes/XL Golf and for the last three years as The Sports Arena). “There’s nobody else showing it that we know of and we know for sure that Adelphia [cable and Internet] isn’t showing it.”

Cole said Bananas the Bear and the UMaine cheerleaders are scheduled to attend.

The Fox Sports Net Midwest-produced UMaine broadcast at 7 p.m. will be one of 15 shown on The Sports Arena TV sets from noon through 11 p.m. Greg Sharpe (play-by-play) and former Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Jayice Pearson (color) will call the game with Kent Pavelka handling sideline duties.

Sports Zone huddles up

Bangor all-sports radio station WZON (620 AM) also will carry Saturday night’s Maine-Nebraska football game live with announcers Rich Kimball and Bob Lucy calling the action from Lincoln, which becomes the state of Nebraska’s third-largest populated city on game days.

The Sports Zone’s 7 p.m. broadcast will be its second involving football Saturday as it will also air Husson College’s 2 p.m. home exhibition game against Bridgewater State College. It’s a rare exhibition game broadcast for WZON.

“We were kind of committed to doing it right from the outset when it was supposed to be a countable game, but I guess Bridgewater had too many games scheduled or something,” WZON program director and announcer Dale Duff explained. “We said we ought to be talking football Saturday with Maine-Nebraska and we might as well give Husson some coverage as well.”

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or at aneff@bangordailynews.net