This summer, ESPN will not be airing one of its most schedule-filling events. On Thursday, the Little League cancelled the 2020 World Series, including seven World Series events across the country and 82 qualifying tournaments.
Additionally, the MLB Little League Classic, which was scheduled for August 23rd and would pit the Boston Red Sox against the Baltimore Orioles, has been axed, though the game will resume next season.
In their release, the Little League noted three key factors that played a role in their decision, largely related to the ability to put on qualifying tournaments and the travel difficulties related to those tournaments.
-The inability to play qualifying tournaments in many of our U.S. and International regions, coupled with direction from federal officials regarding the complexity of international travel restrictions and immigration requirements.
-An indication from teams from around the globe that they will be unable to participate or travel to these tournaments.
-The testing and mitigation protocols that would need to be in place at these significant public events should an individual participating or attending an event be diagnosed with COVID-19.
The Little League also announced that they would be crediting roughly $1.2 million in affiliation fees to all chartered programs.
Outside of the Little League itself, the kids playing, and the city of Williamsport, ESPN is one of the biggest losers of the cancellation. Last year, ESPN aired 345 Little League baseball and softball games over all of its platforms, many of which were on ESPN+. The 11-day Little League Baseball World Series itself aired exclusively on ESPN’s actual networks and ate up a ton of airtime when the only other major live sports ESPN had to air were MLB, MLS, and select NFL preseason games. Losing the Little League World Series will create even more holes in the schedule for ESPN, and while *some* sports should be back in three months, there won’t be enough to go around to fill airtime on all of the networks that are losing content left and right.
