ESPN also delivers a seven-hour programming marathon on Sunday that will highlight Tom Brady’s Championship performances with the New England Patriots over the past two decades. The combination of NFL’s Greatest Games and Super Bowl Highlights specials will feature nine seminal games – including condensed versions of all six Super Bowl victories – from Brady’s time with the Patriots. The seven-hour block begins at 12p with NFL’s Greatest Games: 2001 AFC Divisional Round, Brady’s first playoff game.

PROGRAMMING

WrestleMania, for the first time ever, will be held as a two-night event streaming, running April 4 and 5 at 7p on WWE Network and available on pay-per-view. Rob Gronkowski hosts, with more information available tonight on SmackDown at 8p on FOX. As previously announced, only essential personnel will be on the closed set during the production of WrestleMania.

Major League Soccer announced that it was extending the suspension of league matches and was targeting a return date of May 10. The extension was made in accordance with Sunday’s guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to cancel all mass gatherings of 50 or more people for the next eight weeks. The league said it remains intent on completing the full 2020 season schedule.

Major League Baseball called off planned regular-season games in Mexico and Puerto Rico as a result of the global Covid-19 pandemic. The Diamondbacks and Padres were set to play a two-game series in Mexico City on April 18-19. The Mets and Marlins, meanwhile, were to play a three-game series at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from April 28-30.

CBS’ programming plans will now feature re-airs of nine classic NCAA Tournament basketball games on March 21, 22 and 29. Programming begins tomorrow at noon with the 1982 National Championship game between North Carolina and Georgetown.

Meanwhile, CBS Sports Network carries a five-hour marathon on Sunday featuring several key events from the 2020 PBR World Championship race. The action on CBSSN starts at noon with the second Major of the season, the PBR Iron Cowboy presented by Ariat, which took place at the STAPLES Center in Los Angeles. The PBR mini-marathon will conclude with two hours of coverage from the historic closed-to-fans, made-for-TV Gwinnett Invitational from Infinite Energy Center in Duluth, Georgia last weekend.

This weekend also sees Premier League programming on NBCSN featuring full event replays of recent memorable Manchester United-Manchester City games, starting at 6a on Sunday. In addition, NBCSN will premiere the documentary, “Klopp’s Promise,” this Saturday at 2p. Narrated by Roger Bennett, the show highlights Liverpool’s journey in the four-plus years under manager Jurgen Klopp.

In addition, PFT Live, hosted by NFL Insider Mike Florio and analyst Chris Simms, returns to NBCSN beginning Monday in its usual weekday timeslot from 7–9a to analyze and discuss the latest news surrounding NFL free agency and the upcoming NFL Draft.

The NHL is opening the doors to access to unique content and archived games. Starting Friday, the NHL will serve fans with an increased offering of video, editorial and digital content on NHL.com, the NHL app and across the NHL’s social channels by providing fans access to an expansive selection of classic NHL games, longform content from the NHL Original Productions’ library and free access to stream full replays of games from the 2019-20 regular season. Starting Friday and through April 30, the NHL and Sportsnet have decided to make full replays of all 2019-20 NHL regular-season games already played available to stream on demand. The NHL will launch the “NHL Pause Binge” on NHL.com and on its official YouTube channel, which will consist of a curated collection of NHL Original Productions content,

NBA Champion and NBA Finals MVP Paul Pierce appeared on this week’s episode of SHOWTIME Basketball’s video podcast All The Smoke with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. Pierce discusses his background, from growing up in Inglewood, Calif. as a Lakers fan, to playing for the college powerhouse Kansas Jayhawks and eventually joining the NBA with the 17-time champion Celtics.

Kevin Durant’s Thirty Five Ventures released a new episode of The Boardroom featuring WNBA player & coach and Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman. She sits down with Thirty Five Ventures’ co-founder Rich Kleiman to discuss many topics including the ’74 Women’s Olympic team, her decision of playing for Old Dominion, her relationship with Muhammad Ali, her WNBA discussion with David Stern 13 years before the WNBA began, relationship with Kobe, becoming a businesswoman, becoming a HOFer, and more.

DIGITAL, DATA & TECH

While the baseball season, along with the rest of the sports world, is on hold, Strat-O-Matic is playing out the 2020 campaign daily, beginning with the slate of 15 Opening Day games as originally scheduled for March 26. Using its innovative Baseball Daily product, Strat-O-Matic will allow fans, media and former players to help select the day’s pitchers and lineups, as well as follow the action. Each afternoon at 2p, Strat-O-Matic will announce the results, standings, statistics and key game highlights from that day’s scheduled contests through the website, social channels and multimedia presentations.

The Drone Racing League unveiled DRL Academy, a STEM program, which features online learning opportunities for students studying science, engineering, and unmanned aircraft technology. To immediately integrate DRL Academy into school curriculums nationally, DRL also announced a partnership with educational development group, Eduscape, National Geospatial Technology Center of Excellence, and West Valley College, and will be supporting teachers in need of academic content and activities throughout the semester.

ESPORTS

FOX Sports is hooking up with NASCAR and iRacing to deliver the first-ever eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series event on Sunday at 1:30p on FS1 and the FOX Sports app. Titled FOX NASCAR iRACING, the 90-minute, simulation-style eSports program includes a cross-section of competitors from the NASCAR CUP SERIES, NASCAR XFINITY SERIES, NASCAR GANDER RV & OUTDOORS TRUCK SERIES and a group of NASCAR dignitaries. FOX NASCAR broadcasters Jeff Gordon, Mike Joy and Larry McReynolds call the action from the iRacing virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway.

DreamHack Dallas and DreamHack Summer were both rescheduled as a result of the coronavirus. As a result of this change, DreamHack Masters will no longer be co-hosted at DreamHack Summer. DreamHack Dallas (originally slated for May 22-24) will now take place August 14-16 at Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas. DreamHack Summer (originally scheduled for June 12-14) will now take place August 6-9 at Elmia in Jönköping, Sweden.

INDUSTRY & ROSTER MOVES

The effects of the cancellations of sports and events as a result of the COVID-19 virus, according to a study from Performance Research, created an economic impact of $6 billion. The agency confined their analysis to major, nationally recognized U.S. events including the NBA season suspension, the NCAA Final Four, NCAA College World Series, SXSW Conference and Festivals, the Miami Open (tennis), NFL Draft, NASCAR and IndyCar races, The Kentucky Derby, and NYC’s famed Broadway Theaters, which are just a portion of affected events. (see table below for full list of events included in this analysis). “The economic impact of this pandemic within the festival, conference and sports industry – and the local economies that host these events – is staggering,” says Bill Doyle, Vice President of Performance Research. “In addition to ticket sales and sponsorship investments, these events support jobs and generate revenue for local businesses by bringing in thousands – sometimes hundreds of thousands – of attendees to the host cities.”

SPORTS BROADCAST JOURNAL w/ DAVID J. HALBERSTAM

No clowns, No circus; No games, it doesn’t matter. Not for national sports talk show hosts. They live on. The talkies were all bailed out this week by big off the field football news, beginning with Tom Brady’s move to Tampa Bay. So the NFL took the spotlight on the shows of Colin Cowherd, Dan Patrick, Golic and Wingo, Dan LeBatard and Jim Rome. There was some NBA talk, nothing of note regarding baseball and no hockey discussion.

Strong comments:
Dan Patrick: – “If Rudy Gobert doesn’t test positive, we are probably playing sports. Gobert is an inadvertent hero.”
Colin Cowherd – The Patriots will go 4-12 or 5-11 without Tom Brady. He thinks they should tank, so they can get Trevor Lawrence in 2021 NFL Draft
Fox which has the NFC package is the winner of the Brady move to Tampa Bay. Lots of Joe Buck and Tom Brady
National talk show hosts survive Monday; The NFL is the common subject after dead weekend

None of the wars of the 20th century jolted sports to the very core. The coronavirus has, in one hideous eye-blinking swoop. It’s stopped games cold, closed down arenas, turned large airports into ghost towns and made theaters feel like haunted houses.
The top 25 disruptions through the last 100+ years that were caused by exogenous events are listed in chronological order in the linked piece. These five forced the greatest number of cancelations or havoc 1) Coronavirus 2) World War I 3) Katrina 4) 9/11 and 5) Los Angeles Riots
Coronavirus has dealt sports its biggest blow ever; These are the top 25 disruptions the last 100 years+

Happy Birthday and many happy returns!
Mike Francesa March 20 Ex-sports talk radio host WFAN, New York
Bob Costas March 22 MLB Network amd ex-longtime NBC Sports host
Todd McShay March 22 ESPN, NFL analyst
Jim Jackson March 23 Philadelphia Flyers, TV play-by-play
Jack Edwards March 24 Boston Bruins, TV play-by-play

Sports Broadcast Journal

In the Know
What team is the AAA affiliate for the New York Yankees? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city).

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question
Typically, how many points do you need to win an official table tennis game? Answer: 11 (used to be 21 though). Kudos: Michael Ritz-Lenox Advisors/NY; Keith Marder-Halstead Real Estate/NY; Lance Phegley-Texas Runner and Triathlete magazine/Houston; Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; Larry Hutchings/Nipomo; David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Credit Union/Burbank