On the first of many barren sports weekends to come, there will be UFC and not much else.
ESPN will televise six live hours of Saturday’s UFC Fight Night from Brasilia, including both prelims and the main event, marking the only live sporting event on any network for the foreseeable future. The network was originally slated to air college basketball championship week games.
The live coverage will be part of a 12-hour block of UFC programming, bookended by two three-hour encore presentations of UFC 246 earlier this month.
The only other live programming on any sports network this weekend will be PBA bowling on FS1 Sunday and a 3 1/2 hour broadcast of Mecum Auctions on NBCSN Saturday.
ESPN/ABC will primarily rely on documentaries for its programming. ABC will replace its scheduled XFL game on Saturday with 30 For 30 documentaries and its Rockets-Blazers NBA game on Sunday with College Football 150. ESPN2 will air a marathon of Basketball: A Love Story on Saturday. ESPN will have its own documentary marathon on Sunday.
The other networks will mostly air encores of past sporting events. NBC will re-air last year’s Players Championship in place of this year’s event, which was canceled, as well as an encore of the March 7 England-Wales Six Nations Rugby match.
CBS will air the last five Big Ten Tournament finals and the 2015 Atlantic-10 Tournament final over the weekend. FS1 will carry encores of XFL games, Big East college basketball and NASCAR.
[News from ESPN PR, NBC Sports PR, Fox Sports PR, CBS Sports PR]
