Move over Dial Global, Compass Media, and Sports USA. A new play-by-play comptitor has entered the NFL Sunday afternoon market. ESPN Radio has entered into an agreemnt with the New York Giants, New York Jets, New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Miami Dolphins for Sunday afternoon games. Whether this will be done with a Game of the Week format, like the aforementioned 3 do, or whether it will be with a national distribution deal fo all the teams, like Compass does for the Dallas Cowboys, wasn't made clear, but they did announce three commentators that will do the games. Below is the press release.
ESPN Radio Enters NFL Sunday Afternoon National Syndication Business
Dolphins, Giants, Jets, Patriots, Steelers Games Broadcast
ESPN Radio has signed individual multi-year agreements with the New York Giants, New York Jets, New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Dolphins for out-of-market Sunday afternoon syndication rights beginning with the 2013 season. These agreements mark the first time ESPN Radio will broadcast NFL game action nationally on its over-the-air terrestrial network.
The teams will continue to broadcast in their home markets through their official local stations.
“Adding the NFL to ESPN Radio’s play-by-play mix, which already includes MLB, NBA, BCS, and the new college football championship starting in 2015, strengthens an already unparalleled and valuable lineup to advertisers, our affiliates and sports fans,” said Traug Keller, ESPN senior vice president, production business divisions. “We are excited to enter the NFL game business.”
ESPN NFL analysts Herm Edwards, Bill Polian and Damien Woody will each work several of ESPN Radio’s national broadcasts. Additional commentators and the complete schedule will be announced at a later date.
ESPN Radio Play-by-Play Lineup
In addition to MLB, NBA, BCS and the new college football championship (begins in 2015), ESPN Radio also has long-term rights agreements to broadcast the ACC and Pac-12 college football championship games, the ACC college basketball tournament and the US Open.
ESPN Audio and the NFL
Since its launch in 1992, ESPN Radio has provided comprehensive coverage of the NFL including The NFL on ESPN Radio studio show with reports from every game each Sunday during the regular season and onsite programming from the NFL Draft. Onsite Super Bowl coverage began in 1992 with Mike Tirico hosting from Minneapolis. Onsite programming has expanded to the current lineup of Mike & Mike, The Herd, SVP & Russillo and more.
About ESPN Audio
ESPN Radio, the country’s largest sports radio network, ESPN Deportes Radio, ESPNRadio.com, and ESPN Podcasts comprise ESPN Audio.
ESPN Radio, which launched January 1,1992, provides more than 9,000 hours of talk and event content annually, reaching 24 million listeners a week on 450 nationwide stations, including more than 360 full-time affiliates and clearance in the top 25 markets with owned and/or operated FM stations in New York and Dallas, AM signals in Chicago and Los Angeles. ESPN Radio programming is also available on Sirius XM and via digital distributors Slacker Radio and Tune In. ESPN Deportes Radio is the only all-sports Spanish radio network, and has 46 affiliates covering 72% of the Hispanic DMA with stations in the top 10 Hispanic markets, including owned and/or operated stations in New York and Dallas.
ESPNRadio.com is the most listened to live stream of any terrestrial broadcaster in the world — reaching more than 714,000 unique listeners per month who logged more than 95.3 million total listening hours in 2012, with 11.2 million session starts per month (source: Ando Media). ESPN Podcasts logged 188.8 million completed downloads in 2012 via the ESPN PodCenter and iTunes.
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