ESPN says it faces challenges airing classic sports games but maps plan going forward
Tuesday was supposed to be the opening of the NCAA Tournament with play-in games.
But that event has been canceled, along with virtually every other sporting contest in the world because of the spread of the coronavirus.
While Kansas basketball fans have had an opportunity to watch some classic Jayhawks games on ESPN2 this week, ESPN acknowledged Tuesday it has limitations of what past sporting events it can broadcast.
“Re-airing full-game presentations is not a right that we or other media companies typically have at our disposal at all times. Each one of these circumstances requires individual conversations with the specific league or property to determine what’s possible,” Burke Magnus, ESPN’s Executive Vice President, Programming Acquisitions and Scheduling said in a Q&A on ESPNfrontrow.com.
“Since we’ve heard from fans that would love to relive full-game presentations, particularly at this moment in time, we are exploring that possibility for events and content that we don’t have re-air rights already.
“We are working with the leagues themselves to free up the possibility to show encore presentations and discussing how we can present them. In some instances, we aren’t even the original rightsholder, which is the case for the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, for example.”
One difficulty for ESPN is the four big professional leagues in the United States all have their own networks or channels: the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball. For example, the MLB Network will air the Royals’ “Pine Tar” game on Tuesday night.
ESPN on Tuesday is airing many of its daily shows, such as “Get Up,” “First Take,” “SportsCenter” and “NFL Live,” with NFL free agency provided plenty of player movement for analysts to discuss.
Encore presentations of some of those shows are being broadcast on ESPN2, along with classic men’s basketball games, including Kansas’ home game against Texas from 2007 at 5 p.m. ESPN has updated its schedule only one day ahead of time, and Jayhawks games have aired three straight days.
It also has aired past “30 for 30” documentaries since the sports shutdown.
ESPN has two goals at this time.
“One is the immediate future in terms of how we can be as relevant as possible through news and live studio programming in order to frame for sports fans the impact that these unprecedented circumstances are having on the sports world,” Magnus said in the Q&A. “Since this week coincidentally is the beginning of the NFL league calendar and free agency, we’ve built our schedules with an eye toward that being a major topic of conversation.
“The second goal is aimed at looking ahead to entertain fans through fun, compelling archival content and/or themed and stunt event programming that will provide a diversion at a time that there are virtually no other live sports to watch.”
Sports fans are a creative bunch and have tried to fill the void themselves. On social media, people have shared videos of marble racing and dominoes. While Magnus didn’t say he has heard those sorts of suggestions, ESPN has received ideas from viewers.
“This element speaks to both the experience we’ve had programming over the years and the ideas that people have been forwarding to us in recent days,” Magnus said. “There are so many creative things we can do, similar to some of the initiatives we’ve done in the past for special event anniversaries, ‘The Ocho’ day and more.
“The challenge is that now we need to replicate that dynamic 24 hours a day, seven days a week across multiple networks. That’s what is in front of us in terms of long-range planning.”
This story was originally published March 17, 2020 at 11:19 AM.
