Contrary to a report from last month, ESPN’s top XFL broadcast team will not be Steve Levy, Pat McAfee, and Dan Orlovsky. Instead, Levy will be paired with Greg McElroy as the main team for Saturday games, the West final, and the XFL’s championship game (which hopefully won’t be called something dumb like the Xtreme Bowl).
McAfee will still be involved with ESPN’s coverage of the league, though. He’ll call Sunday games alongside play by play announcer Tom Hart and analyst Joey Galloway. Tom Luginbill will also work as a field analyst for the Saturday games with Levy and McElroy, and Dianna Russini will work as a reporter for ESPN’s XFL broadcasts.
Last month, Fox announced that their main XFL broadcast team would be Curt Menefee and Joel Klatt, though the network still hasn’t announced any other on-air talent for XFL content.
Both ESPN and Fox will air two XFL games per weekend, one each on Saturday and Sunday, airing on a variety of networks (including ABC, Fox, ESPN, ESPN2, FS1, and FS2). Given the lack of live content on the networks around this time of year (ESPN has the NBA, both networks have college basketball, and that’s about all), it makes all the sense in the world for the XFL’s two TV partners to attach prominent talent to the game broadcasts. What else are pro and college football analysts doing in February, March, and April, aside from obsessing over NFL Draft content?
I have no idea if the XFL, Version 2.0 will succeed or not, but ESPN and Fox are doing everything they can to make sure it does. The next steps will need to be taken by the league’s coaches, players, and executives.
[ESPN]
