BTN to broadcast Softball NCAA Ann Arbor Regional
This was up in the air on Sunday night when another network (SECSPN) ripped the rug out from under us.
ESPN ALWAYS covered our regional and super regional before. And we're the No. 2 overall seed, higher than last year.
However, Harbaugh wasn't ruffling the SEC's feathers last year.
Thankfully as I and others predicted, BTN has picked up this weekend's NCAA Ann Arbor Regional.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The Big Ten Network will produce every game from the Ann Arbor softball regional in an announcement made by the network Wednesday afternoon (May 18). Every game will be streamed live on BTN2Go while select games will be broadcast live on BTN. Game tickets sold out within an hour of the public sale.
Coverage starts Friday with two games slated for live broadcast on BTN. Notre Dame plays Miami (Ohio) at 4:30 in Game 1 of the regional before No. 2-seeded Michigan hosts Valparaiso at 7 p.m.
Saturday's games start at noon and all three games will be carried live on BTN2Go, with television coverage to be determined after Friday's contests.
Sunday's coverage starts at 2 p.m. live on BTN. The game had originally been scheduled for 1 p.m. but was moved back one hour to accommodate the live television broadcast.
Ann Arbor Regional Schedule
Friday, May 20
Game 1 -- #2 seed Notre Dame vs. #3 seed Miami (Ohio), 4:30 p.m. - BTN/BTN2Go
Game 2 -- #1 seed Michigan vs. #4 seed Valparaiso, 7 p.m. - BTN/BTN2GoSaturday, May 21
Game 3 -- Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner, Noon - BTN2Go (BTN TBD)
Game 4 -- Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser, 2:30 p.m. - BTN2Go (BTN TBD)
Game 5 -- Game 3 loser vs. Game 4 winner, 5 p.m. - BTN2Go (BTN TBD)Sunday, May 22
Game 6 -- Game 3 winner vs. Game 5 winner, 2 p.m. - BTN/BTN2Go
Game 7 (if necessary) -- Game 6 winner vs. Game 6 loser, 4:30 p.m. - BTN/BTN2Go
Indeed yes, so many classic games. The problem is that some days all of them are, for example, 2009 Purdue vs. Ohio State or something which was, at best, mildly amusing. A week or so ago, it was 2013 Michigan vs. Northwestern, and it was that moment which made me suspicious of further submissions to anything BTN may call "classic game".
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Game 4 is likely to be Valparaso vs Miami (NTM) and Game 5 hopefully will be ND vs winner of Game 5. So both of those games will not feature a B1G team, so they probably don't want to air those games. But if Michigan loses a game, then they will be in the 4 or 5 game, and they will probably air those games.
Very glad to see this worked out. Been waiting a long time for this, would've been frustrating to be stuck with nothing more than Gametracker!
ESPN would not cover our regional.
They won't cover our regional because it just isn't that compelling. With 2 no-name teams (that have little chance of winning the region), this is not a very desirable region. Last year, there was a Pac 12 team and an ACC team in addtion to Michigan. This year, we have an ACC team, but instead of California we have Miami (NTM). You can hardly blame ESPN for looking at that lineup and passing.
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So far, our theories about why ESPN chose to show regionals other than the Ann Arbor regional (note that they can only show 3 of the 13 regionals not on the west coast):
(a) To punish Michigan because Jim Harbaugh has satellite camps,
(b) To punish Michigan because FOX will be broadcasting Big Ten football starting in 2017,
(c) To boost ratings because the regional has the worst #3-seed in the nation and the #4 seed with the worst record, with neither of them belonging to a "power 5" conference.
Well, since we don't know their motivations we don't know which is the case, but I think one of those explanations makes more sense, because it requires the decision-makers to be rational rather than irrational.
Was the BTN in negotiations to take a big chuck of thier games to Fox from ESPN. Just saying....
If Michigan wins their regional, they are guaranteed to host the super-regional.
The super-regional will either be Thursday-Friday, Friday-Saturday or Saturday-Sunday. (Note that it won't be Saturday-Sunday if BYU advances, and will almost certainly be Thursday-Friday in that case). The format is game 1 on the first day and games 2 and 3 (if necessary) back-to-back on the second day. The schedule will be announced on Monday morning by the NCAA.
has nothing to do with the Big Ten announcement that it has sold half the conference TV football rights to Fox and that ESPN will have to fend with others for the remaining half starting in 2017. No wonder ESPN has been shedding its CFB broadcasting roster and most expensive names. Looks like the Worldwide Network is facing some major retrenchment and will have to begin development of some new talent while pushing more SEC games to the forefront.