ESPN Ready to Start Championship Week

One of the best weeks of the year is Championship Week when the college basketball conference tournaments take the sports calendar by the balls and offer great upsets, buzzer beaters and tremendous games. This is something ESPN does extremely well every year. Championship Week seems to get bigger and 2010 is no exception.

Let’s take a look at the schedule and it’s quite long. Be ready to scroll.

• ABC will offer full national coverage of the men’s SEC Championship semifinals (Saturday, March 13, at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. ET) and championship (Sunday, March 14, at 1 p.m.). The first eight games of the championship will be produced by ESPN Regional Television and will be available on the SEC Network, ESPN360.com and ESPN FULL COURT.
• With the addition of four first-round games, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU will combine to televise all 15 matchups of BIG EAST Championship.
• A network record 21 women’s conference tournament games across ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU will be highlighted by telecasts of the SEC semifinals (Saturday, March 6, at 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.) and Sun Belt Conference championship (Tuesday, March 9, at 2 p.m.) for the first time, all three on ESPNU. Overall, the action will serve as a lead-in to complete, 63-game coverage of the NCAA Women’s Tournament on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN360.com and ESPN FULL COURT March 20 through April 6.
• ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD, ESPNU HD and ABC HD will combine to offer a record 45 Championship Week games in high definition. Men’s high-definition coverage will include every men’s ACC, BIG EAST, Big Ten, Big 12 and West Coast Conference telecast, plus the Horizon League semifinals. Women’s high-definition coverage will include every BIG EAST and SEC telecast.
• ESPN360.com — ESPN’s live broadband sports network, which will become ESPN3.com on April 4 — will cover a record 174 games with simulcasts of every ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN FULL COURT telecast as well as three additional games not available on any other ESPN platform. This is the first year ESPN360.com will simulcast games from ESPNU. ESPN360.com will also provide live coverage of every NCAA Women’s Tournament game, as well as select postseason NIT games.
• ESPN.com will debut the ESPN Championship Week Pick ‘Em fantasy game. Players select the outcome of up to 76 conference tournament games in play during seven days of Championship Week (March 8-14). A $3,000 cash prize will be awarded to the winner with the most points at the end of the week and a $2,000 cash prize to the winner with the most points in a single day — Thursday, March 11, the busiest day of the week, with 23 total games. 

• This season will mark ESPN’s 25th, ESPN2’s 16th and ESPNU’s fifth year of comprehensive coverage. ESPN will televise 21 games, ESPN2 33, ESPNU 31 and ABC three games. ESPN FULL COURT, ESPN’s pay-per-view package, will offer 86 games. ESPN360.com will simulcast every ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN FULL COURT telecast.
• ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ABC will feature 67 men’s games, including action from 25 Division I conferences, highlighted by 24 Division I championship games and a Division II title matchup. 
• ESPNU, marking its fifth anniversary March 4, will feature a network record 31 men’s and women’s games from 13 Division I conferences and one Division II conference. 
• ESPN Mobile TV, ESPN’s first 24/7 mobile video channel (available on FLO TV and MobiTV) will offer live simulcasts of 27 men’s and women’s games, plus bonus coverage – featuring live extended look-ins – of two others.
• The final four days of Championship Week will feature 43 games across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU (March 11-14), highlighted by 16 telecasts Saturday, March 13.
• ESPN and ESPN2 will televise three games from the Big 12, including the championship Saturday, March 13, at 6 p.m. ESPN Regional Television will syndicate the remaining eight games for coverage on ESPN360.com and ESPN FULL COURT, as well as in the Big 12 markets.
• In addition to 15 BIG EAST games, ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU will combine to televise multiple men’s games from several top conferences, including eight from the ACC (every game but the first-round telecast will be outermarket only), four from the Big Ten.
• ESPN International will offer extensive coverage, reaching 89.6 million households in 164 countries and territories on ESPN America – Europe (nine games), ESPN America -Middle East (nine games), ESPN 2 Caribbean (23 games), ESPN Pac Rim (six games), ESPN Australia HD (17 games), ESPN Atlantic (five games), ESPN Middle East (eight games), and two games each on ESPN Dos, ESPN China, ESPN Hong Kong, ESPN India, ESPN Malaysia, ESPN Philippines, ESPN Asia, ESPN Taiwan and Star Sports Hong Kong. 

• Sean McDonough and analysts Jay Bilas and Bill Raftery will work nine of the network’s BIG EAST telecasts, including both semifinals and the championship on ESPN (Friday, March 12, at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. and Saturday, March 13, at 9 p.m.). Dave Pasch and Fran Fraschill
  a will call the remaining six contests. In addition to being the reporter on the semifinals and championship, Doris Burke will serve as an analyst with Fraschilla on three games. Beth Mowins will report from the sidelines on eight of the games. Burke will also be an analyst on a BIG EAST Women’s Championship Presented by New York Life semifinal Monday, March 8, at 6 p.m. on ESPNU with Dave O’Brien and reporter Rebecca Lobo. Mowins – who will work 12 games, more than any other commentator – will work play-by-play on four of the women’s BIG EAST contests with analyst Brooke Weisbrod, including the championship Tuesday, March 9, at 7 p.m. on ESPN.
• Hall of Famer Dick Vitale, in his 31st season with ESPN, will pair up with Dan Shulman and reporter Erin Andrews to work a men’s ACC semifinal March 13 at 3:30 p.m. and championship March 14 at 1 p.m., both on ESPN. Len Elmore will serve as the analyst for the six additional telecasts, with commentators Mike Patrick and Dan Shulman each working three of those games. Andrews will provide reports on five additional games. Patrick and Elmore will also call the Colonial Athletic Association championship Monday, March 8, at 7 p.m. on ESPN.
• ESPN analyst and Basketball Hall of Famer Bob Knight, commentator Brent Musburger and reporter Holly Rowe will work all three Big 12 telecasts.
• Brad Nessler, analyst Jimmy Dykes and reporter Jeannine Edwards will work the three SEC games on ABC (Saturday, March 13, at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. and Sunday, March 14, at 1 p.m.). Cara Capuano and Carolyn Peck will work the women’s SEC telecasts (Saturday, March 6, at 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. on ESPNU and Sunday, March 7, at 6:30 p.m. on ESPN2).
• O’Brien and Steve Lavin will work ESPN and ESPN2’s four Big Ten telecasts (Thursday, March 11, at 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. on ESPN2 and Friday, March 12, at noon and 2 p.m. on ESPN).
• Bob Wischusen and analyst Tim Welsh will work six games together, including four different conference championships: Ohio Valley (Saturday, March 6, at 8 p.m. on ESPN2), Metro Atlantic Athletic (Monday, March 8, at 7 p.m. on ESPN2), Northeast (Wednesday, March 10, at 7 p.m. on ESPN2) and America East (Saturday, March 13, at noon on ESPN2).
• Two teams will work five games each:
  • Terry Gannon and Stephen Bardo will call games from the West Coast and Western Athletic Conference, including the championship from each (Monday, March 8, at 9 p.m. on ESPN and Saturday, March 13, at 10 p.m. on ESPN2, respectively).
  • Of their five games, Jon Sciambi and LaPhonso Ellis will work three championships: the Big South (Saturday, March 6, at 4 p.m. on ESPN2), Horizon League (Sunday, March 9, at 9 p.m. on ESPN) and Patriot League (Friday, March 12, at 4:45 p.m. on ESPN2). 

Some reactions. Dan Shulman will call the ACC Championship with Dick Vitale ending a long pairing with Mike Patrick. In addition, Sean McDonough gets to call the Big East Championship with his entertaining team of Bill Raftery and Jay Bilas. And the SEC Championship goes from CBS to ABC. Bad job by ESPN putting Brent Musburger and Bob Knight on the Big 12 Tournament over Ron Franklin and Fran Fraschilla.