ESPN guest lineup for World Horseshoe Pitching Tournament includes Bill Snyder, Travis Kelce

This summer’s SportsCenter “On The Road” series has already seen ESPN cover three-on-three street basketball, hot dog eating contests and “The World Championships of Cornhole X,” and they’re following that up with a broadcast live from the The National Horseshoe Pitchers Association World Tournament in Topeka, Kansas this Saturday, hosted by Matt Barrie and Sara Walsh on ESPN2 from nine a.m. to noon Eastern. While horseshoes stars like three-time defending men’s open champion Alan Francis will be interviewed, they won’t be the only sports figures there. As the Topeka Capital-Journal reports, ESPN plans to have plenty of guests from the world of football too, including Kansas State coach Bill Snyder, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and San Francisco 49ers linebacker Michael Wilhoite (a native of Manhattan, Kansas).

This is part of the overall SportsCenter “On The Road” approach, balancing the unusual events they’re covering with more general world-of-sports news and interviews, and it’s an interesting one. There’s a fine line to walk here to keep viewers tuned in; how much horseshoes coverage is unique and worthwhile for general sports fans, how much adds to the feeling of these on-the-road events, and how much is going too far and getting away from the sports news people are looking for? Granted, it’s not like summer Saturdays are generally full of hard-hitting sports news, but there’s still a balance here that needs to be maintained. Maybe interviewing guests from other sports at these particular events can help draw fans in, but it’s not necessarily a sure-fire recipe for success.

The On The Road SportsCenters don’t seem to have drawn great ratings so far, either, with the June 28 one from the three-on-three basketball tournament not making ESPN’s top 10 programs that week (regular SportsCenters Thursday and Sunday were #4 and #10) and the July 4 one (setting up the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating contest) not making ESPN2’s top 10 programs that week (the contest itself was #1 and #2, with regular SportsCenters from Monday and Wednesday clocking in at #8-10). We’ll see if this investment in travelling to all these events proves to be worth it for ESPN in the long run.