ESPN To Air 177 Games During Championship Week

ESPN will air a record 177 men’s and women’s college basketball conference tournament games across its battalion of networks and 174 games on ESPN360.com as part of this year’s Championship Week.

Beginning on March 4 and running through March 14, ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPNU will broadcast 177 games, surpassing the previous high of 152, set last year.

ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD, ESPNU HD and ABC HD will combine to offer a record 45 Championship Week games in HD. Men’s HD 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 HD coverage will include every BIG EAST and SEC telecast.

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.

ESPN360.com – soon to 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.

ABC will offer full national coverage of the men’s SEC Championship semifinals (Sat., March 13) and championship (Sun., March 14). 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.

In total, ESPN Regional will syndicate 34 games, comprising action from the SEC (eight games), the Big 12 (eight games), the Big East (four women’s games), Metro Atlantic Athletic (six men’s and three women’s games) and America East (two men’s and three women’s games).

With the addition of four first-round games, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU will combine to televise all 15 matchups of BIG EAST Championship

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.

Password must contain the following:

A lowercase letter

A capital (uppercase) letter

A number

Minimum 8 characters