- ESPN is close to gaining rights to all four rounds of the British Open beginning in 2010, reports the Sports Business Journal. The deal would last seven years and be worth $25 million a year, and would include international and digital rights. Current cable rights owner TNT initially “bid to renew its package for the first two rounds“, but did not match ESPN’s offer. The rationale behind shifting the entire tournament to cable instead of keeping some coverage on ESPN sibling ABC is due to the early morning time windows for The Open, which preempts “blocks of profitable news and entertainment programming.”
- The ESPN family of networks will televise over 400 college football games during the upcoming season. Saturday Night Football on ABC will kick off August 30 with Auburn/Clemson or Michigan State/California, while ESPN will air Tennessee/UCLA on Labor Day. ESPN’s Thursday night college football slate starts with NC State/South Carolina on August 28, and will include games from the Big 12 for the first time — including Texas A&M/Texas on Thanksgiving night.
- The Oklahoma City Thunder/Bison/Barons/Energy/Marshalls/Wind will be visited by the Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks only once during the 2008-09 NBA season. The Mavericks and Kings are the only Western Conference teams “that will make only one trip to Oklahoma City.” Though Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was one of only two owners to vote against the Sonics’ relocation to Oklahoma City, the scheduling is a coincidence; the number of times a team visits a city is set on a five-year rotation.
