What do sports TV networks show now?
ESPN has a peculiar problem to solve over the next several weeks:
What does a sports TV network put on TV when there are no live sports anymore?
The answer for them and other sports networks right now is unclear in the long term. They’re all trying to figure it out after games in all major sports were cancelled or postponed to slow the spread of COVID-19.
They’re scrambling just like many other businesses these days. And their attempts to fill the void will test their creativity for an indefinite period.
“The problem for sports (networks) is that it’s never been based on a deep bench of previously made content,” said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse.
“Sports has always been about stuff that is really timely, either games that are being played live or discussion about games that are very, very recent or games that are about to come up.”
The short-term solution is to televise re-runs of classic games, plus documentaries and news, if there is news besides the big news of cancelled games.
❚ ESPN has more holes to fill on its several channels, but it also has a robust library of 30-for-30 documentaries and historic games that already air regularly on ESPN Classic. ESPN’s sister station, ABC, aired the 30-for-30 film “I Hate Christian Laettner” to replace Saturday’s cancelled XFL game between Houston and New York. Without live events, SportsCenter also still can discuss NFL topics yearround like it normally does.
❚ Basketball fans will miss the NCAA basketball tournament on CBS, but CBS won’t have too much of an adjustment to make because it’s not a full-time sports channel. It plans to air its popular sitcom “Young Sheldon” on Thursday night to replace the firstround games, according to the CBS website. That show has been getting around nine million viewers, compared to 6.22 million for last year’s most-viewed first-round game between Duke and North Dakota State.
❚ FS1 planned to air replays of Big East and Pac-12 games to replace those basketball tournaments that were cancelled this weekend.
❚ Sports league networks can go into offseason mode, with their own content libraries and talk shows. After the cancellation of Friday’s game between San Jose and St. Louis, the NHL
Network replaced it with Game 5 of the 1985 Stanley Cup Finals, when Wayne Gretzky led Edmonton to the championship over Philadelphia.
Broadcasting old games isn’t the same, but sports viewers still will want to watch something in place of live events.
NBC will air last year’s Players Championship golf event Sunday after this weekend’s event was cancelled. That’s a good strategy for big events that dropped off the calendar, said Neal Pilson, the former president of CBS Sports, who suggested the same for the Masters.
“It’d be like a rain delay,” Pilson told USA TODAY Sports. “You put up a little notice saying this is the 2019 event. Frankly, it might get better ratings than anything else you might want to do.”