rewrite this content and keep HTML tags
For years, women’s basketball fans have implored ESPN to cover the WNBA more regularly.
For nearly 20 years, it has broadcast the league’s entire postseason as well as its draft and marquee regular-season games. But until recently, the network did not air a regular pre- or post-game studio show. WNBA coverage is scarce within the ESPN daytime lineup.
Finally, it seems that will change.
In a recent story at Front Office Sports, ESPN VP of Production for NBA and WNBA studio Hilary Guy hinted that a daily WNBA Today program could be coming soon. Guy plans to expand the regular WNBA Today segment within the hourlong NBA Today show at 3 p.m. ET, and a new show could branch off of that.
“Lots of plans in the works,” Guy told FOS. “I can’t reveal all right now. We will at some point be announcing our plans for the full season and they are very exciting. But I will say from an NBA Today perspective, which I also oversee, we have a WNBA Today segment that we do all the time, and I only see that growing within that show itself. There’s more on the horizon as well.”
ESPN basketball analyst Chiney Ogwumike, who is regular panelist on NBA Today as well as the immensely popular NCAA Women’s Championship In the Studio and WNBA Countdown, said a daily WNBA show would signal that the sport has “arrived.”
“There’s been a lot of rumblings about, ‘We need a women’s show,’ something daily. To me, that’s been the biggest goal of mine,” Ogwumike told FOS. “Having a show like that would show that we’ve arrived.”
In the past, talent like Sarah Spain have jumped ship from ESPN in search of a regular role covering women’s sports. Despite owning WNBA, NWSL and women’s college basketball rights, the network has not invested in a whole studio show covering any of those sports, or women’s sports as a whole.
While the daytime lineup on ESPN is mostly full (aside from a forthcoming hole at 5 p.m. ET when Around the Horn ends in May), ESPN2 could house a WNBA studio show alongside ESPN Bet Live and re-aired podcasts. Alternatively, the network could opt to include a WNBA show in its ESPN+ subscription tier. That’s what it has done with the ESPN FC soccer breakdown show and the NHL breakdown show In the Crease.
