ESPN is continuing with their College Football Playoff Megacasts with the first ever 12-team version reaching the quarterfinal round across New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
The network gave us Megacasts for the two first round games that were on their airwaves on campus, Notre Dame-Indiana and Ohio State-Tennessee. The two games sub-licensed to TNT did not get megacast coverage even though they remained ESPN productions.
That won’t be the case for the quarterfinals as all four games will see blanket coverage across a number of ESPN networks and platforms.
The Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Eve between Penn State and Boise State will see the main telecast on ESPN with the Command Center on ESPN2, and a Skycast on ESPNU.
In addition to those options, the Texas-Arizona State Peach Bowl to lead off New Year’s Day will see the SEC Network air the Texas Longhorns radio call along with the Skycast.
The Rose Bowl in their traditional January 1st timeslot will see the Command Center replaced by another Pat McAfee Show altcast. Thankfully for them the weather will be a bit friendlier to being on the sidelines than it was in Columbus last week when the temperature was well below freezing.
Finally, Notre Dame-Georgia in the Sugar Bowl will see the same coverage options as the Peach Bowl with the SEC Network providing the hometown call for Bulldogs fans.
All games will also have a Spanish language option on ESPN Deportes, national radio coverage on ESPN Radio, and special Marching Band feeds on the ESPN app. Altcasts may be reaching their saturation point, but clearly ESPN sees the value in putting these games on pretty much every platform they have. And given the dollars they are paying for the rights to the playoff, they might as well.
[ESPN]
About Matt Yoder