With Major League Baseball pushed back a week, the finale of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament will return to primetime for the first time in six years.
ESPN announced Friday that the April 3 NCAA women’s basketball national championship will move from 6 PM ET to 8 PM, marking the first time since 2016 that the event has aired in primetime. Since moving from a Tuesday night to a Sunday evening in 2017, the title game has preceded a Sunday Night Baseball game each year.
This year’s national championship was also slated to precede a Sunday Night Baseball game, but the MLB owners lockout pushed back the start of the season to April 7 — leaving a Sunday night vacancy April 3.
In other Women’s NCAA Tournament news, ABC is scheduled to carry games for the second-straight year, airing a first round doubleheader on March 19 and a second round doubleheader the following day. The network’s four-game schedule is actually lighter than last year’s six-game slate, as it is not set to carry any games on the second weekend of play — when there are four Sweet Sixteen and two Elite Eight games scheduled.
The new women’s “First Four” — necessitated by the expansion of the field from 64 to 68 teams — is scheduled to air on ESPNU March 16 and ESPN2 March 17.
The delayed start of the MLB season has also resulted in ESPN moving the March 31 NIT Championship to its flagship network. The network had been scheduled to carry an Opening Day game in primetime.
[News from ESPN, ESPN advance schedule]
