As ESPN begins life without Major League Baseball next year, which sports figure to benefit from the hole in the network’s lineup?
ESPN may have deemphasized Major League Baseball in recent years, but the network has still been able to count on 26-straight Sunday nights of programming over the past 35 years, including several in the dead months of summer. Yet it is not difficult to imagine how the network will proceed without MLB games next year.
March and April: Women’s March Madness
Sunday Night Baseball begins this season on March 30, which coincides with the regional finals of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament. Because Sunday nights are occupied with MLB, the Sunday Elite Eight games air in the daytime on ABC — where they compete head-to-head with the men’s regional finals on CBS. It would make sense to move those games to primetime on ESPN.
The following Sunday is the NCAA women’s national championship, which under the new NCAA contract ESPN signed last year is contractually required to air on ABC. Since moving to ABC two years ago, the national title game has remained in a 3 PM ET timeslot to avoid potentially preempting the network’s primetime programming. In the event that changes, an ESPN simulcast of the national title game could fill the second Sunday night.
April and May: Stanley Cup Playoffs
Once college basketball ends, the attention of the sports world shifts to professional playoffs. As ESPN will no longer carry Sunday night NBA games after this season — those rights will belong to NBC, creating another five or so Sunday night vacancies on ESPN in February and March — the NHL figures to occupy Sunday nights in April and May.
ESPN is already scheduling the occasional NHL game on Sunday nights following MLB, particularly during the postseason, but next year it will no longer have to settle for 10 PM ET West Coast windows.
June: College World Series
Often overlooked, the postseasons of college baseball and softball already generate strong Sunday night numbers on the ESPN networks — even opposite Sunday Night Baseball.
Last year, a North Carolina-Tennessee Men’s College World Series game drew 1.7 million viewers on ESPN2 opposite a Yankees-Red Sox game on ESPN. A Women’s College World Series doubleheader of UCLA-Stanford and Florida-Alabama averaged 1.19 and 1.16 million opposite SNB earlier in the month. It would take little effort to move those windows up to ESPN.
July and August: WNBA and NBA Summer League
Given the rise in WNBA viewership last season, and the fact that the league has only one appointment night of programming (Friday nights on ION), a Sunday night series of games would make sense for the midsummer months of July and August. ESPN has not set aside a specific night for WNBA games since 2011, when games primarily aired on Tuesdays.
In addition to the WNBA, NBA Summer League games could fill a couple of July Sunday nights. In years featuring a prominent prospect, the Summer League can generate the occasional seven-figure audience.
August and September: US Open tennis
With the US Open expanding its schedule to begin on a Sunday, there are three potential Sunday nights on which ESPN could schedule a night session. The first night of the tournament could do especially well in a Sunday night window, followed by the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, and finally the men’s final.
While the men’s final moved up to ABC last season, the viewership was far from impressive — even though the final featured an American for the first time in years. The 2 PM ET start put the final in competition with the heart of the Sunday afternoon NFL schedule. The final would likely face less competition going up against Sunday Night Football.
Late September: WNBA Playoffs
Following the US Open, there are two more Sunday nights on which ESPN would have ordinarily shown baseball. By that point, NFL competition would make programming Sunday nights a losing errand — but if ESPN chose to go head-to-head, WNBA playoff games could be an option.
