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ESPN Sunday night MLB scheduling question

I

ixnay

How long in advance is the announcement made that a Sunday MLB game has been rescheduled for 8:05p ET to accommodate ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball?

Here's why I'm asking... Someone had tickets for himself and I for yesterday's (8/24/08) game and when he informed me (at 11:00a yesterday, 2h35m before the first pitch) that the game had been ESPN-ized for SNB schedulewise, well, to make a long story short, I couldn't attend and so he found someone to give them away to.

How far in advance are Sunday games rescheduled for ESPN's SNB?

I remember reading that, during the "floating" second half of the NFL's season, announcements that a Sunday afternoon game has been rescheduled for NBC's SNF are made 12(?) days in advance of the game.

ixnay
 
My guess is that they do it before the schedule comes out. They choose the games that they think will attract the most ratings. You know what kinds of games those are. ::)
 
No, it's not done before the schedule comes out. They do have some tenative games picked, but they are not locked in. ESPN usually makes their final pick 2-3 weeks before the game.
 
BRice16 said:
No, it's not done before the schedule comes out. They do have some tenative games picked, but they are not locked in. ESPN usually makes their final pick 2-3 weeks before the game.
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oh ok. I guess you answered that question for me as well since I didn't know that lol.
 
Here's the rest of the ESPN Sunday Night games for 2008, per Yahoo:

8/31 LA Dodgers at Arizona (ESPN2)
9/07 Philadelphia at NY Mets
9/14 None yet.
9/21 Baltimore at NY Yankees. This is the last game at Yankee Stadium, so this one won't be changed.
9/28 None yet. Since this is the last day of the regular season (barring ties in the standings that require a playoff), I'm not sure if ESPN is even doing a game then. If so, it depends on who hasn't locked up a playoff spot yet. First guess: Chicago Cubs at Milwaukee or NY Yankees at Boston (just because they're the Yankees & Red Sox ;D ).
 
KeithE4 said:
9/28 None yet. Since this is the last day of the regular season (barring ties in the standings that require a playoff), I'm not sure if ESPN is even doing a game then. If so, it depends on who hasn't locked up a playoff spot yet. First guess: Chicago Cubs at Milwaukee or NY Yankees at Boston (just because they're the Yankees & Red Sox ;D ).
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They usually don't do a game that night.
 
ixnay said:
Someone had tickets for himself and I for yesterday's (8/24/08) game and when he informed me (at 11:00a yesterday, 2h35m before the first pitch) that the game had been ESPN-ized for SNB schedulewise, well, to make a long story short, I couldn't attend and so he found someone to give them away to. How far in advance are Sunday games rescheduled for ESPN's SNB?
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ESPN announced the 08-24-08 LA-PHIL game on 08-08-08. Both team websites had the change on that date. This season, they typically have been selecting the "flex" Sunday game on the Friday two weeks prior to broadcast.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/broadcasts/national.jsp
 
I was also under the impression that ESPN set its SNB schedule prior to Opening Day. Sorry to hear about your issue with those tickets.

My fingers have been crossed that the Tampa Bay Rays will make it onto one of the telecasts before the regular season ends. If indeed the 9/14 date is open, I really think ESPN should pick up the TB @ NYY game. I've constantly heard that Tampa Bay is one of the least favorite clubs for networks to show on national broadcasts because of how bad they've been, but this year is different, so maybe I'll get lucky and get to see them on there. But I seriously doubt it.
 
radioguy555 said:
My fingers have been crossed that the Tampa Bay Rays will make it onto one of the telecasts before the regular season ends. If indeed the 9/14 date is open, I really think ESPN should pick up the TB @ NYY game.
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It's possible they could very well grab that game for the fact that the Yankees are involved (and their playoff hopes could lie in this series). Although I believe there is a maximum number of games imposed on ESPN for each team they can air matchups on SNB per year.
 
radioguy, don't feel sorry. If I had visited phillies.com every night starting 8/1 I would have found out myself about the switch, and NOT the hard way. ;D What the heck, I wound up visiting (for the first time in my about-to-become-47 years) the lavish duPont Winterthur estate in Delaware as a result. :)

SDIE, thanks for letting us know when the switch was announced.

Funny thing, though, Sat. night (8/23) cbs.sportsline.com listed the 8/24 LAD/PHI game as 1:35. I guess since the Eye and ESPN are not sisters, CBS's sports site saw no obligation to give its users notice as to an ESPN-induced time switch. ::) BTW, lacking broadband as I do, I use cbs.sportsline.com to get scores and sports news on the web, rather than rely on slow-downloading espn.com or usatoday.com.

ixnay
 
ESPN does NOT schedule their games prior to the season. I have Red Sox season tickets and several Sunday games say "1:35 OR 8:00 PM". Also, the ESPN.com ombudsman wrote a recent piece on just this topic. See link below.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=schreiber_leanne&id=3534299

Some of the guidelines she mentions:

The most a team can be on Sunday nights is 5 times

Also:
By Dec. 22, ESPN has to specify the first eight Sunday games of the upcoming season it wants to telecast. By the same date, it must reserve three matchups for each of the remaining 18 Sunday nights of the regular season, from which it will later pick one game to telecast, giving three weeks notice in midseason and two weeks notice toward the end of the season.
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