Our History

Our company was founded by Tom Zawistowski in 1982. TRZ was incorporated in 1984 in Kent, Ohio as TRZ Sports Services, Inc., with the aim of providing consulting services to colleges athletic departments, professional sports teams, and other athletic organizations. The firm initially helped its clients with fund raising and ticket sales program development, computer system installation and instruction, television and radio broadcast network development, special event management and promotion, and other projects involving marketing, advertising, and public relations components. The company was instrumental in the founding of the World Basketball League (WBL) in 1987.

In 1989 TRZ turned its total attention to developing a unique telephone broadcast technology that combined computers with telephone switching equipment. In March of 1990, TRZ aired the first ever telephone broadcasts of a live sporting event on its new TEAMLINE service when it provided access to all 32 games of the NIT basketball tournament and the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs. By 1993 TRZ had signed exclusive contracts with the NBA, 90% of all Division I college sports teams, as well as NFL and Major League Baseball Teams. At one point 96% of all major sporting events in the United States were transmitted on TRZ's TEAMLINE service. Millions of callers listened to the live play by play of their favorite team's games using TEAMLINE from telephones all over the world.

In 1994 TRZ changed its corporate name to TRZ Communications Services, Inc. to reflect its diversification into non-sports programming. TRZ began to offer live coverage of business meetings and religious services along with its sports business. In 1998 TRZ started construction of its second generation technical platform which was based on softswitch technology that provided expanded capabilities and a vastly improved application development environment. In 1999 the company moved its offices from Akron, Ohio and purchased a building in Kent, Ohio to house its new platform.

By the year 2000 TRZ was providing medical, educational, business, religious and sports programming as well as long distance and conferencing services. In 2001, TRZ began to offer internet access to events and started to integrate web capabilities with its telephone platform. In 2005, TRZ moved its technology to VoIP and began streaming live audio and video using it's own facilities. Today, TRZ provides a host of services for hundreds of clients from throughout North America and the world providing over 40,000 live events annually.