On Monday, ABC and ESPN will each air a Monday Night Football game. The ESPN game, Titans-Bills, starts at 7:15 PM ET, with the ABC game, Vikings-Eagles, starting at 8:30 PM.
Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and Lisa Salters will be calling the ABC game, while Steve Levy, Dan Orlovsky, Louis Riddick, and Laura Rutledge will call the ESPN game.
With the games overlapping, ESPN will be updating viewers on the game they’re not watching in several ways.
Per a release from the company, here’s what will happen during both games once the second one starts.
- Activating a double-box view, allowing simultaneous viewing for periods of time
- Having a noticeable, but smaller, less prominent, score box of Vikings-Eagles on ESPN and Titans-Bills on ABC – in addition to the traditional scorebox
- Buck and Levy will toss it to Scott Van Pelt, who will be in his SportsCenter studio, for highlights and game updates of Titans-Bills and Vikings-Eagles, respectively.
- Prominent navigation and updates via the Bottom Line
Halftime of both games will be what you’re used to, with Suzy Kolber hosting in studio along with Booger McFarland and Adam Schefter. However, it will also feature live look-ins of the game that isn’t at halftime.
After the ESPN game, Scott Van Pelt takes over to present extended live look-ins of the ABC game, along with updates and a recap of the ESPN game.
ESPN2 will simulcast ESPN’s feed until the ABC game ends, while ESPN+ simulcasts the ABC game in full. ESPN Deportes will stick with Titans-Bills until it concludes, jumping over to Vikings-Eagles. The Spanish feed of the entire ABC game will exclusively be on ESPN+.
Whew. That seems more complicated than it really is. But with two primetime games airing at roughly the same time, ESPN will make sure viewers know what’s going on in the other game so flipping back and forth isn’t essential.
[ESPN]
