College baseball still is not at the forefront of these media deals, but exposure is continuing to grow as the NCAA inks a new 8 year deal with ESPN to broadcast 40 annual NCAA championships. This deal will all but guarantee the College World Series to be back in the national spotlight with games being televised on ABC. I am still a little skeptical on what that means... does it mean just the championship series in Omaha is on ABC? Primetime CWS bracket play games on ABC? Regional games?
The agreement calls for the NCAA and ESPN to work together to maximize exposure opportunities on ABC and ESPN throughout the term. The national championship game in Division I women's basketball, women's volleyball, women's gymnastics, and the Football Championship Subdivision are guaranteed to air on ABC each year, with additional ABC exposure guaranteed within the overall softball and baseball championships as well. The agreement also includes a guarantee that at least 10 of the championships will have selections shows distributed on linear ESPN networks. - NCAA.org
Until a Friday night or Saturday night primetime game between two SEC powers or ACC powers is televised on ESPN or one of the major sports network channels, I'm not satisfied. As the time for players to go from donning their college uniform to MLB uniform continues to decrease, the popularity will continue to grow (Nolan Schanuel and Zach Neto as of late). College football's product at the highest level is near NFL level, college baseball outside of the SEC still has talent too far spread out for some baseball fans to be all in. Putting national championship series on ABC will hopefully attract more mainstay college baseball fans again, but it takes more. Last year's CWS was the most watched College World Series of all-time with 1.6 million average viewers on ESPN. Regular season games need to become more mainstream for the sport to hit a mooning rocket. ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 or even CBS need to have regular season games televised for me to be sold. Think like a Tuesday night game between Texas and Texas State or any major in-state rivalry on ESPN/ABC. College baseball fan me thinks its a no brainer! Realistic me thinks the viewer ratings would never be high enough for it to be a sell.
But nonetheless, this will definitely help the growth of the sport. CBS, from 91-2002, used to air one game on the first Saturday of the College World Series and then the championship game. Below is Stanford/LSU in 2000 national championship on CBS.
All in all, this deal is better than the previous one, aka a step in the right direction. ESPN+ will still be the heartland of college baseball fans nationwide. It is probably the best subscription a college baseball fan can buy.
College baseball still is not at the forefront of these media deals, but exposure is continuing to grow as the NCAA inks a new 8 year deal with ESPN to broadcast 40 annual NCAA championships. This deal will all but guarantee the College World Series to be back in the national spotlight with games being televised on ABC. I am still a little skeptical on what that means... does it mean just the championship series in Omaha is on ABC? Primetime CWS bracket play games on ABC? Regional games?
The agreement calls for the NCAA and ESPN to work together to maximize exposure opportunities on ABC and ESPN throughout the term. The national championship game in Division I women's basketball, women's volleyball, women's gymnastics, and the Football Championship Subdivision are guaranteed to air on ABC each year, with additional ABC exposure guaranteed within the overall softball and baseball championships as well. The agreement also includes a guarantee that at least 10 of the championships will have selections shows distributed on linear ESPN networks. - NCAA.org
Until a Friday night or Saturday night primetime game between two SEC powers or ACC powers is televised on ESPN or one of the major sports network channels, I'm not satisfied. As the time for players to go from donning their college uniform to MLB uniform continues to decrease, the popularity will continue to grow (Nolan Schanuel and Zach Neto as of late). College football's product at the highest level is near NFL level, college baseball outside of the SEC still has talent too far spread out for some baseball fans to be all in. Putting national championship series on ABC will hopefully attract more mainstay college baseball fans again, but it takes more. Last year's CWS was the most watched College World Series of all-time with 1.6 million average viewers on ESPN. Regular season games need to become more mainstream for the sport to hit a mooning rocket. ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 or even CBS need to have regular season games televised for me to be sold. Think like a Tuesday night game between Texas and Texas State or any major in-state rivalry on ESPN/ABC. College baseball fan me thinks its a no brainer! Realistic me thinks the viewer ratings would never be high enough for it to be a sell.
But nonetheless, this will definitely help the growth of the sport. CBS, from 91-2002, used to air one game on the first Saturday of the College World Series and then the championship game. Below is Stanford/LSU in 2000 national championship on CBS.
All in all, this deal is better than the previous one, aka a step in the right direction. ESPN+ will still be the heartland of college baseball fans nationwide. It is probably the best subscription a college baseball fan can buy.
