ESPN's Summer Plans

With ESPN's relationship with Major League Baseball almost certainly coming to an end after this season, it begs one major question.  What will ESPN show on Sunday nights in the summer?  Part of MLB's frustration with ESPN was their overall lack of MLB coverage, but Sunday Night Baseball has anchored ESPN's summer programming for years.  And that's where they'll really be feeling their divorce with Major League Baseball.

ESPN will continue to hold the rights to each of the other three men's major professional sports, but those won't really do much to fill their summer programming void.  Football season doesn't even start until September and ESPN's NFL contract is for Monday Night Football, so that doesn't help.  Neither does ESPN's other favorite league, the NBA, since the new NBA contract calls for a weekly Sunday night game on NBC.

The NHL, however, could conceivably step in to fill the void during the first half of baseball season.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we see Sunday night Stanley Cup Playoff games on ESPN starting in 2026.  ESPN doesn't have either the NBA or Stanley Cup Finals, though, so no Sunday night games there, either.  (The NBA Finals are on ABC, while the Stanley Cup Final alternates between ABC and TNT.)

It really looks like the WNBA will be the big winner here.  It's the only other major sport in action during the summer period and WNBA is the primary rightsholder.  Women's basketball is hot right now and ESPN/ABC has already been expanding its coverage, so that seems like the next logical step.  A single WNBA featured game at 8:00 on Sunday nights would help cover a lot of those "dead" weeks in June, July and August.

I can also see ESPN expanding its coverage of the NCAA baseball tournament.  They already cover every game during the Regionals and Super Regionals across all the ESPN networks, so it's not a stretch to think that they'll schedule a Sunday night game on ESPN during the first two rounds.  Then, during the College World Series, the Sunday night game can simply move from ESPN2 to ESPN.  Likewise, instead of starting the CWS finals on Monday night, they'll just start them on Sunday night instead.

They could conceivably do the same thing for the NCAA softball tournament.  The softball schedule is a little bit different than the baseball schedule, but it's still easy enough to picture ESPN and the NCAA setting it up so that there's a Sunday night game to feature on the main network during both the Regionals and Super Regionals.  And, like the men, starting the Women's College World Series finals on Sunday instead of Monday would make sense.

That only gets them through the end of June, though.  Which, again, is why I think the WNBA really stands to benefit.  It wouldn't surprise me if ESPN were to use their newly available Sunday night window in the summer for events like the NBA Summer League or The Basketball Tournament.  TBT was essentially created because ESPN was looking for summer programming, and they'll really need summer programming without Sunday Night Baseball.

This one might seem a little out of the box, but there is a possibility ESPN will show football on Sunday nights in the Spring, at least as long as the UFL keeps going.  That season ends in mid-June, so between the UFL, the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the NCAA baseball and softball tournaments, that would cover the first half of baseball season.  Beyond the WNBA, though, there isn't much in the second half, which is where the WNBA comes in.

Honestly, I can't even think of anything else ESPN could possibly use to fill so many Summer Sunday nights.  They haven't had an MLS contract for a few years.  They don't have any major soccer contracts, in fact.  FOX has done a great job of building its soccer portfolio at ESPN's expense.  They have a few of the European leagues, but those are mainly streaming deals on ESPN+.  And, because of the time difference, that wouldn't do anything to help their Sunday night problem, either.

One event ESPN still has during the Summer is the US Open, which just expanded its schedule to include a third Sunday.  That means there's an extra Sunday night session for ESPN.  And the Sunday night session on Labor Day Weekend can move from ESPN2 to ESPN.  The men's final is during the afternoon on ABC, so that's likely not moving.  But it would be dumb to do that anyway since it'd be going opposite the Week 1 Sunday Night Football game.

Of course, these are all short-term solutions to what may be a long-term problem.  That's another big thing to take into consideration here.  ESPN didn't feel that it was worth it to pay $550 million for Major League Baseball.  That created a huge void in their schedule without alternate programming easily available to fill it, though.  And whatever they end up putting on Sunday nights likely won't generate the type of ratings and regular viewership that Sunday Night Baseball did.

Which is why I think this was a massive miscalculation on ESPN's part.  I don't think the opt-out was a negotiating ploy.  It was Major League Baseball calling their bluff.  And it seems more likely that MLB will find a new TV partner willing to match or exceed what ESPN was paying for its rights, while ESPN is in a position of trying to fill 26 weeks' worth of Sunday night programming.  That's much easier said than done, and don't be surprised if it ends up being SportsCenter all night on some of those weeks.

Could the bad blood between MLB and ESPN eventually be cooled and Sunday Night Baseball returns to the network?  Perhaps.  Will ESPN realize the value of Sunday Night Baseball and want it back once it's officially gone next season?  It's certainly a possibility.  But, for the foreseeable future at least, they have to act as if they'll be moving forward without Major League Baseball on the network.  Which means they'll have to plan ahead accordingly.

Will ESPN figure something out?  I'm sure of it.  (Seeing as it's a 24-hour network, they kind of need to.)  But replacing such a consistent weekly standby as Sunday Night Baseball, which takes up literally half a year's worth of Sunday nights, will prove to be a difficult task.  Especially since, for the moment at least, ESPN doesn't have enough alternative inventory.  They may eventually.  But, right now at least, it looks like ESPN will miss Sunday Night Baseball a lot more than MLB will miss ESPN.