ESPN to cover all bases on College World Series coverage

Michael Hiestand, USA TODAY Sports | USATODAY

Saturation TV coverage – as seen with the Olympics and NCAA men's basketball tournament – can greatly raise the visibility of big events.

So here's the question: Can TV lead to everybody eventually filling out office brackets for the NCAA baseball tournament?

ESPN, in a plan that will be formally announced today, is trying to make that happen with its College World Series coverage. Consider that during first-round coverage starting May 31, ESPN will carry every game from all 16 game sites – up from games at six sites last year, four in 2011 and just two in previous years.

Meaning, ESPN is going all-in on college baseball tournament tonnage. Its coverage of the first round – the Regionals – could include as many as 112 games over four days.

Last year, ESPN's game plan was only meant to cover as many as 83 games in the entire tournament, which uses a double-elimination format. This year, depending on play, ESPN could end up with 153 games – meaning every game in the tournament.

Why bother? Partly, the idea is to create a version of a whip-around channel, such as the NFL Network's RedZone channel for Sunday NFL action and ESPN's Goal Line channel for Saturday college football and Buzzer Beater channel for college basketball, which is offered on busy weekends and weeknights.

The idea behind those channels: Swing viewers among games where scoring – or something big – seems imminent. For the college baseball tournament, ESPN will debut a Bases Loaded channel, not just for when the bases are loaded but signaling any situation where action is bound to be exciting: a possible no-hitter, a player going for the cycle, an umpire's call leading to a manager going beserk.

But to be able to swing among games, obviously, they have to be covered.

"Viewers love the format of RedZone, Goal Line and Buzzer Beater," says ESPN senior coordinating producer Mike Moore. "If you don't have a particular rooting interest, it's a great way to watch sports. The TV crew becomes your remote for you." (Memo to NBC: You really need a RedZone-like channel to swing viewers among the many simultaneous live events in Olympic action.)

And in a good example of how digital platforms can be integrated with TV channels, ESPN will put most of its expanded CWS coverage on its ESPN3 digital channel, which ESPN says is in about 85 million households. The new Bases Loaded channel will air continuously on ESPN3 – for about 37 hours during the four-day first round – and will show up often on ESPN channels as handy filler during rainouts or between games. ESPN lead CWS analyst Kyle Peterson will be the host of the whip-around show before joining analysts such as Nomar Garciaparra on game action in later rounds.

CWS games already have a toehold on viewers nationally. ESPN's 11 CWS games last year averaged 1% of cable/satellite TV households and ESPN2's four games averaged 0.8%. But even if the expanded coverage doesn't build overall interest, suggests ESPN's Moore, it still serves a function during down time among TV games: "Instead of having a couple guys sitting in a studio talking, we can show games."