ESPN College Basketball on ABC

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See also: College Basketball on ESPN
College Basketball on ABC
Genre College basketball telecasts
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 23
Production
Camera setup Multi-camera
Running time 120 minutes or until end of game
Production company(s) ABC Sports
ESPN
Release
Original network ABC
Picture format 480i (SDTV),
1080i (HDTV)
Original release January 18, 1987 (1987-01-18) –
March 16, 2014 (2014-03-16)

ESPN College Basketball on ABC (originally College Basketball on ABC) is the branding formerly used for broadcasts of NCAA Division I college basketball games produced by ESPN, and televised on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). ABC broadcast select college basketball games during the 1960s and 1970s, before it began televising them on a regular basis on January 18, 1987 (involving a game between the LSU Tigers and Kentucky Wildcats). As CBS and NBC were also broadcasting college games at the time, this put the sport on all three major broadcast television networks. ABC's final regular college basketball broadcast aired on March 7, 2009 (between the Oklahoma State Cowboys and Oklahoma Sooners).

Coverage overview

1962, 1973, 1978

ABC first broadcast college basketball games in 1962, when the network aired the NCAA Championship Game on a day-behind delayed basis, as part of its Wide World of Sports anthology series. On December 15, 1973, ABC aired what is considered to be the first[1] telecast of a regular season college basketball game by a major broadcast network (between UCLA and North Carolina State in St. Louis). ABC (which had recently lost the NBA rights to CBS) televised this game using its former NBA announcing crew of Keith Jackson and Bill Russell.

In the 1977–78 season, C.D. Chesley (who controlled the rights to the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) at the time) wanted NBC to televise select ACC games as part of its national package as it had done the previous few years. However, NBC wanted to feature intersectional games. This action greatly upset Chesley, who wound up selling the rights to the ACC Tournament final to ABC. ABC would televise the 1978 ACC Tournament final as part of Wide World of Sports. The game, called by Jim Lampley and Bill Russell, marked the first time Duke University's Blue Devils basketball team played on national television.

1987–2014

When ABC's coverage[2][3] began in 1987,[4] the network primarily covered[5][6] the Big Ten, Big 8 and Pac-10 Conferences. By 1991 (around the time NBC was phasing out their own college basketball coverage), ABC ramped up its basketball coverage in an effort to fill the void.[7] As a result, the network also started to cover games focusing on teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and Southeastern Conference (SEC). Otherwise, it was essentially, a considerable hodge-podge with an ACC game one week, or a Pac-10 or Big 10 game the next. The games that were broadcast were a hodge-podge of conference matchups even after the ESPN on ABC brand change, with SEC and Big East match-ups occasionally being shown alongside frequent ACC, Big 12 and Pac-10 match-ups.

ABC's early regular season broadcasts were for the most part, technically time buys from organizations such as Raycom[8][9] (particularly, around 1990–1991) or sister network ESPN. This in return, was a way to avoid union contracts which require 100% of network shows had to use crew staff who were network union members.[10] During the early 1990s, Raycom paid ABC US$1.8 million for six weeks of network airtime of 26 regional games. The format allowed Raycom to control the games and sell the advertising.[11]

In the 1987–88 season, ABC did not air any college basketball games during the last three weekends of February due to the network's coverage of the Winter Olympics. Coverage by ABC steadily increased during the early 1990s; by the 1991–92 season, ABC was carrying regional games in many timeslots on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. By 1997, ABC's presenting sponsor was Paine Webber.[12]

Starting in 1997, coverage of the PGA Tour limited the amount of games that the network showed; this continued through 2006. Coverage of the NBA further decreased college basketball coverage on the network when ABC Sports acquired the broadcast rights to the league (through a production arrangement with ESPN) beginning in 2002. Beginning with the 2007 season, all games were rebranded as part of the integration of ABC Sports into ESPN as ESPN on ABC (meaning that all sports telecasts on ABC would exclusively feature ESPN's graphics, music and announcers) and Sunday games were discontinued. From 2007 to 2009, all games began at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time, which was a departure from the differing broadcast times that were previously assigned to the game telecasts. From 2010 to 2013, ABC broadcast the semi-finals and finals of the SEC Men's Basketball Tournament. In 2014, ABC only broadcast the semi-final round of the tournament.

Schedules

All rankings are from that week's Coaches Poll.

2006 schedule

[13]

Date Time Away Home Broadcast notes
January 21 1:00 Texas Tech 48 #25 Oklahoma 60
6:00 California 55 Arizona 60 West Coast only
February 11 3:30 Charlotte 56 Wake Forest 59 Split-national
Oklahoma State 44 Texas A&M 46 Split-national
#13 UCLA 67 #21 Washington 70 Split-national
February 18 1:00 #21 NC State 70 Virginia Tech 64 Split-national
Iowa State 82 #19 Oklahoma 83 Split-national
6:00 #5 Gonzaga 79 Loyola Marymount 70 West Coast only
February 19 1:30 #23 North Carolina 83 Wake Forest 72 Split-national
#6 Texas 60 Oklahoma State 81 Split-national
February 25 1:00 Wake Forest 61 Georgia Tech 76 Split-national
Texas Tech 63 Oklahoma State 74 Split-national
7:00 Stanford 39 Washington State 37 West Coast only

2007 schedule

For the 2007 season, ABC introduced a standardized time of 3:30 for its college basketball broadcasts.

[14]

Date Away Home Broadcast notes
January 13 #1 North Carolina 88 Virginia Tech 94 Split-national
Oklahoma 69 #25 Texas 80 Split-national
January 20 #17 Duke 73 North Carolina State 56
February 3 #3 North Carolina 79 North Carolina State 83 Split-national
Kansas State 73 #23 Texas 72 Split-national
February 10 #8 Kansas 92 Missouri 74 Split-national
Arizona 77 #15 Oregon 74 Split-national
February 17 Connecticut 63 Syracuse 73 Split-national
Tennessee 64 South Carolina 81 Split-national
#6 Texas A&M 56 Oklahoma 49 Split-national
February 24 #16 Marquette 73 #23 Notre Dame 85 Split-national (58% of the United States)
Georgia Tech 69 #19 Virginia 75 Split-national (26% of the United States)
Gonzaga 86 San Francisco 79 Split-national (16% of the United States)
March 3 North Carolina State 59 Maryland 79 Split-national (56% of the United States)
Oklahoma 61 Kansas State 72 Split-national (24% of the United States)
Arizona 85 Stanford 80 Split-national (20% of the United States)

2008 schedule

[15]

ABC began broadcasting college basketball games in high definition for the 2008 season.
Date Away Home Broadcast notes
January 19 Maryland 82 #5 North Carolina 80
February 2 Miami 73 #3 Duke 88 Split-national
#2 Kansas 72 Colorado 59 Split-national (no HD)
February 9 Virginia 64 Wake Forest 80 Split-national
#12 Texas 71 Iowa State 65 Split-national
Southern California 50 #17 Washington State 74 Split-national (no HD)
February 16 Oklahoma State 59 #16 Texas A&M 54 Split-national
#7 Stanford 67 Arizona 66 Split-national
February 23 Oklahoma 45 #7 Texas 62 Split-national (no HD)
Oregon 65 #6 UCLA 75 Split-national (no HD)
March 1 #3 North Carolina 90 Boston College 80
March 8 Georgia Tech 86 Boston College 78 Split-national
Missouri 66 Oklahoma 75 Split-national (no HD)
California 80 #3 UCLA 81 Split-national

2009 schedule

[16]

Date Away Home Broadcast notes
January 17 #3 Wake Forest 78 #9 Clemson 68 Split-national (70% of the United States)
Kansas 73 Colorado 56 Split-national (30% of the United States)
January 31 #6 North Carolina 93 North Carolina State 76 Split-national (78% of the United States)
Stanford 63 #16 UCLA 97 Split-national (22% of the United States)
February 7 Oklahoma State 67 #24 Kansas 78 Split-national (82% of the United States)
Arizona 87 Oregon 77 Split-national (18% of the United States)
February 14 #16 Kansas 85 Kansas State 74 Split-national (75% of the United States)
Florida 86 Georgia 88 Split-national (25% of the United States)
February 21 #3 North Carolina 85 Maryland 88
February 28 #7 Duke 72 Virginia Tech 65 Split-national (81% of the United States)
#3 Oklahoma 78 Texas Tech 63 Split-national (19% of the United States)
March 7 Oklahoma State 78 #5 Oklahoma 82 Split-national (59% of the United States)
Maryland 63 Virginia 68 Split-national (23% of the United States)
Oregon 68 #17 UCLA 94 Split-national (18% of the United States, no HD)

Commentators

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See also: List of College Basketball on ABC personalities and ESPN College Basketball broadcast teams

In the early years of ABC's regular college basketball coverage, Keith Jackson[17][18] and Dick Vitale[19][20] were the primary announcing crew, while Gary Bender[21] was the secondary play-by-play announcer behind Jackson. Meanwhile, Al Michaels[22] did regional games during this period. When Brent Musburger[23] came over from CBS in late 1990, he started working with Dick Vitale on the main team. Jim Valvano[24][25] did color commentary on games for ABC for a few years until his death in 1993; Vitale and Valvano were paired as co-analysts on ABC's college basketball broadcasts a few times during the 1991–92 season. In the 1992–93 season, Terry Gannon filled in on a few games for Valvano, who at the time was battling cancer, which would ultimately claim his life in April 1993. Many of the announcers worked for ABC and ESPN, and ABC continued to use ESPN announcers, reporters and commentators until 2009, never quite establishing firm ABC broadcasting teams even after the ESPN on ABC brand switch.

See also

References

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  4. ↑ ABC Intershow February 1987 on YouTube
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  7. ↑ 90's Commercials Vol. 60 on YouTube
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  12. ↑ Handful of March 1997 ABC commercials on YouTube
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Preceded by
None
 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship television broadcaster
1962		 Succeeded by
SNI
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