ESPN wants to reduce emphasis on College Football Playoff, cover more schools for the sport’s benefit
ESPN's Lee Fitting says "it’s time to take a little reset."
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Brian Custer moves from Fox Sports to ESPN, where he’ll call college sports and host SportsCenter, fulfilling a teenage dream
"When I was a teen, I was like, ‘Man, I want to be on SportsCenter.' When I started my broadcasting career it was without question on my vision board."
Early CFB highlights include ESPN Events games in Houston and Vegas, Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff going to Minneapolis and Madison
Week 0 games are back on both ESPN and Fox, and both networks also have a strong Week 1 lineup.
ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit publishing memoir, ‘Out of the Pocket,’ to be released August 17
The autobiography is co-authored with Gene Wojciechowski.
Kirk Herbstreit says coaches tell him “teams are opting out,” thinks Michigan “waves the white flag,” apologizes (updated)
"I've talked to a lot of coaches around the country that say they really feel teams are opting out to avoid playing games because they don't want to get humiliated. They don't want to lose with the team that they have."
Dave Flemming and Rod Gilmore wound up discussing one of Zeno’s paradoxes on the Oregon-Oregon State broadcast
"You can almost keep doing it. They can never put you in the end zone."
ESPN’s Shelley Smith shared a story of her niece getting hit in the head with ice at a past Oregon-Oregon State game
"Once I was here with my niece Vanessa, who was wearing a Ducks' jacket, and she got hit on the head with a chunk of ice. It didn't knock her out, but it knocked her silly."
Oklahoma-West Virginia, ABC’s planned Saturday night primetime game, has been postponed due to COVID-19
ESPN and ABC may now have to do some schedule-shuffling.
ESPN’s Desmond Howard announces he’s tested positive for coronavirus
Howard said his symptoms include a cough and muscle soreness.
After Tom Hart’s home studio suffered a mid-game power outage, Cole Cubelic and Jordan Rodgers stepped up on play-by-play
"Cole Cubelic on the field, Jordan Rodgers at home, and Tom Hart still trying to figure out his alarm at his house, so he's not quite with us. Not sure if there's a zombie apocalypse or what's going on."
Spencer Hall, Richard Johnson join revamped ‘Thinking Out Loud’ show on ESPN’s SEC Network
Hall, Johnson, and Brandon Boykin replace Marcus Spears and Greg McElroy on the weekly talk show.
Mike Golic announces he’ll call college football games for ESPN and ABC this season
Golic will also provide analysis on College Football Live and SportsCenter.
Edward Aschoff’s fiancée reveals that he had non-Hodgkins lymphoma as well as pneumonia, shares scholarship fund info
"He wouldn’t have wanted to go out like that. His ass was too vain."
Rose Bowl and Citrus Bowl post impressive numbers for ESPN and ABC
There weren't any playoff games on New Year's Day this year, but some other bowls like the Rose and Citrus drew good numbers.
Could Chris Petersen be the next college coach to take a TV job?
Plenty of coaches have gone into TV work, but there might be some particular challenges there for Petersen, especially given his history with ESPN.
Fox is making progress competing with ESPN by presenting itself as an alternative to perceived SEC favoritism
The final hour of Big Noon Kickoff got close to GameDay’s average audience last week, setting up an interesting battle this week
Big Noon Kickoff averaged 1,979,000 viewers for its 11 a.m ET-noon hour Saturday. College GameDay averaged 2,725,000 viewers for its final hour, but 2,125,000 across its three hours, so Fox's peak is at least getting close to ESPN's average. And few would have predicted that when Big Noon Kickoff launched.
ESPN PR calls Fox EVP Michael Mulvihill’s ratings tweet “inaccurate information” over overnights/finals divide around Florida-LSU/MLB
"Incomplete data provides inaccurate information" is quite a stance to take on a tweet that was correct at the time.
