- The Carolina Panthers’ first prime time appearance of the season will not be their last. After playing on Monday Night Football last night, the Panthers will appear on Sunday Night Football in Week 16, as their game against the Giants has been added to NBC’s schedule. Panthers/Giants replaces the originally scheduled game, Chargers/Buccaneers.
- ABC will become the first network to counterprogram the Super Bowl with original programming in five years. The network will air an abbreviated episode of its reality show Wipeout during halftime of NBC’s Super Bowl broadcast. The special edition of Wipeout, hosted by SportsCenter‘s John Anderson, will feature former ESPN NFL analyst Michael Irvin as a sideline reporter. After the game, ABC will air a full episode of Wipeout, featuring “cheerleaders [competing] against male ‘couch potato’ sports fans.”
- In advance of its January 1 launch, MLB Network has christened its studios in the honor of two baseball greats. The home of the network’s nightly studio show MLB Tonight will be Studio 3, named after Babe Ruth. Meanwhile, a separate studio — a replica of a baseball stadium, including “a half-scale turf infield, a replica outfield wall“, seating for over 100 and a realtime scoreboard — will be named Studio 42, after Jackie Robinson.
News: March Madness expansion, Russell Wilson, Nexstar and more
The NCAA basketball tournaments are officially expanding to 76 teams; Russell Wilson is mulling between playing football and starting...
