So it pretty much breaks down like this:       ABC Sports broadcasts (Season Opener; MLS All-Star Game; MLS Cup 2003) Pre-game/Halftime/Post-game Host = Rob Stone Play-by-Play = J.P. Dellacamera Lead Analyst = Ty Keough Field Analyst = Eric Wynalda       espn2 broadcasts Play-by-Play = Rob Stone Lead Analyst = Ty Keough Field Analyst = Eric Wynalda Halftime Features Reporter = Veronica Paysee Halftime "It's Your Game" Feature Reporter = Tommy Smyth       So ABC/espn2 decided to officially announce its MLS broadcast teams a day after the MLS/Fox Sports World announcement? Hmm...
The part about halftime mentioned that they will be previewing the evening games. Hopefully there is nothing in the contract that keeps them from pimping the FSW games, both in the halftime show and in commercials.
Competition is a good thing. If the Fox people help keep the ESPN people focused they might actually improve their coverage this year! Who knows, maybe no games will get preempted on ESPN by the 1996 Worlds Strongest Man Competition or this years Bass fishing tournament?!?!
Either the lighting was bad or they took JP's photo right after he donated blood or something. Not aging well...
sorta news had been provided by soccer america's mls confidential but the smyth and veronica info is new
      Definitely. The only competition the ESPN people every really had nationally for MLS games was first by Univision, then by Telemundo... and in both cases, the Spanish-language networks realistically wanted less to do with MLS than the ESPN people did.       Now the ESPN people may actually have to work at improving their coverage... I hope they know that, though! -G
I wonder who's going to handle opening day for WUSA on espn2.... JP and Wendy Gebauer do the PAX broadcasts for WUSA, but with JP in Columbus for the MLS opener on ABC, I'm guess Rob Stone may get the call in Cary for Washington/Carolina. He did call at least one WNT game (with Michelle Akers, no less) last year. EDIT: Nevermind. Beth Mowins and Anson Dorrance will be doing the WUSA broadcasts.
Have the games before this year been shown on ESPN International? If not, this seems like a pretty big deal.
      That's a good point. They are both rival networks, but then again this sometimes happens in NFL telecasts (not too often, but I've sometimes seen it).       Then again, MLS currently doesn't have the leverage that the NFL does, but still... -G
It's pretty much standard for all the major sports here in North America now. I'm pretty sure that the various leagues get it written into their contracts. ABC and ESPN pimp NBA broadcasts on TNT and vice versa, NBC pimps NASCAR broadcasts on TNT and vice versa, and during the baseball playoffs, Fox and ABC Family were pimping each others' games. The only place you don't see it is with the NHL, but then, ABC and ESPN have the exclusive national rights to the NHL, so they wouldn't have to pimp rival national networks' broadcasts. Hopefully, MLS will be able to do this sort of thing with their national broadcasts.