After nearly a decade on cable, the men’s final of the US Open is returning to broadcast television. Plus, more scheduling nuggets from the network upfronts: college football and NASCAR.
US Open men’s tennis final returning to broadcast television
ESPN announced Wednesday that the men’s final of the US Open tennis tournament will air on ABC September 8, marking the first time since 2014 on CBS that the event has aired on broadcast television. With the move to ABC, the match will move up two hours from 4 PM ET to 2 PM, in keeping with the network’s aversion to sports running into its primetime programming.
(The scheduling change was first noticed last month by a number of eagle-eyed observers, including the sports media writer Morgan Wick and Ben Koo of Awful Announcing.)
Though it was not explicitly stated in Wednesday’s announcement, the women’s final will remain on ESPN, as ABC has a South Carolina-Kentucky college football game in the competing window.
ABC has steadily increased its tennis inventory in recent years, adding a pair of live Wimbledon middle weekend windows and a carrying a US Open telecast on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend.
ABC, CBS, “Pac-2,” among college football scheduling announcements
Speaking of college football, ABC will debut its new SEC package with a tripleheader of Clemson-Georgia, Miami-Florida and Notre Dame-Texas A&M on August 31, the opening Saturday of the season, it was announced Tuesday. The aforementioned South Carolina-Kentucky game the following week will be the network’s first intra-conference matchup.
In its first post-SEC season, CBS will air a full slate of Big Ten games this season, including Notre Dame-Purdue on September 14 and USC-Michigan on September 21.
In other college football scheduling news, the remaining Pac-12 teams — Oregon State and Washington State — have officially announced that their 13 combined home games will air across CW and FOX. CW will air 11 of the 13 combined games, with each school playing one game on FOX. Oregon State’s FOX game will be the Civil War against Oregon on September 14 and Washington State’s will be against Texas Tech on September 7.
With the Pac-12 now extinct, the American Athletic Conference title game will occupy the Friday night ABC window previously occupied by the Pac-12 Championship.
NASCAR announces details of Amazon and TNT packages
Amazon will begin its NASCAR Cup Series coverage with the Coca-Cola 600 from Charlotte next year, it was announced Tuesday. The race will mark the first Cup Series event that is aired entirely on a direct-to-consumer platform, and the first time since 2000 that the Memorial Day weekend race has not aired on broadcast television.
TNT announced Wednesday that it will debut its five-race schedule with a primetime race from Atlanta on June 28 of next year, which will kick off the new NASCAR In-Season Tournament that was announced this week.
Drew Lerner contributed reporting.
