With this being the first year of the expanded College Football Playoff, ESPN is pulling out all the stops including a dual Megacast for their two first round broadcasts.
While ESPN holds all the rights for the College Football Playoff, the network is sub-licensing two games to Warner Bros. Discovery to air on TNT. Those would be the Saturday afternoon games of Clemson-Texas and SMU-Penn State that have the misfortune of going head-to-head with the NFL.
ESPN is keeping hold of the Friday and Saturday night primetime games with Indiana-Notre Dame first from South Bend and then Tennessee-Ohio State from Columbus. And not only are they taking College GameDay on the road to both locations, both games will get the vaunted Megacast treatment from ESPN, along with a potential new scorebug.
Friday night’s game between the Hoosiers and Fighting Irish will see the main telecast airing on both ABC and ESPN. The network’s Command Center will air on ESPN with multiple camera angles showcasing different parts of the action. And then there’s the consistent Skycam on ESPNEWS.
ESPN will pull out more options for the Saturday showcase game between Tennessee and Ohio State. The main broadcast will once again be on ABC and ESPN while ESPN2 airs a Field Pass with the crew from The Pat McAfee Show as we’ve seen in years past. Good luck to them with the Saturday night forecast in Columbus set for a high temperature of just 27 degrees and a low of 14 degrees.
The other bonus option fans will have for the game will be the SEC Network’s simulcast of the Tennessee radio feed. Who knows, maybe some Ohio State fans would prefer listening to that broadcast rather than Kirk Herbstreit.
[ESPN]
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