ESPN is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to women’s sports.
ESPN will fill the void left by the departure of Sunday Night Baseball with a new “Women’s Sports Sundays” franchise this summer.
With SNB a goner after 36 seasons on-air, the Disney-owned sports media giant will replace baseball with a steady diet of live WNBA and NWSL games. Down the road, viewers could potentially see other women’s sports featured, including college hoops.
The move follows ESPN’s near-breakup with Major League Baseball. The longtime business partners mutually agreed to opt out of their seven-year, $550 million rights deal three seasons early last February. They later came together with a reworked deal that includes a national 30-game midweek package and the rights to sell and distribute MLB.TV’s out-of-market streaming service. ESPN is paying roughly the same for its new deal at $550 million annually.
Variety first reported the news Thursday. Susie Piotrkowski, VP of women’s sports programming and espnW, told the outlet she’s planning nine weeks of “Women’s Sports Sundays” that will include both games and studio programming. Since moving on from SNB, ESPN has had a group of 60 staffers fast-tracking the new women’s sports programming block.
“We saw an opportunity to have access in what I would call women’s sports season, the summer months,” Piotrkowski told Variety.
Sunday night is the biggest night of the week when it comes to TV viewership. NBC Sports’s Sunday Night Football, for example, has reigned as the No. 1 show in primetime for a record 15 years. ESPN’s commitment to air women’s sports in the prominent primetime window is another indicator female sports leagues have arrived as premier sports TV properties.
ESPN has long made a commitment to women’s sports with its espnW division and rights deals with the WNBA; NWSL; and Athletes Unlimited women’s softball, basketball, and volleyball leagues.
The worldwide leader has also developed a new generation of TV talent for women’s sports coverage, including Malika Andrews, Chiney Ogwumike, Monica McNutt, Andraya Carter, and Elle Duncan, who recently left for Netflix. If successful, “Women’s Sports Sundays” could expand to include other leagues.
Rosalyn Durant, ESPN’s EVP of programming and acquisitions, described the women’s sports strategy as a “flag in the ground and a continuing commitment.”
“Women’s Sports Sundays” will consist of 12 games over a nine-week period, although an official start date has yet to be announced. That likely isn’t a coincidence, with one of its key components currently facing an uncertain start date.
The WNBA and WNBPA are in the midst of negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement that could impact the start of the 2026 season. In a scathing statement shared just before midnight on Tuesday, the WNBA said with two drafts to complete plus free agency, time is “running out” to reach a deal. This came in response to the union’s latest proposal asking for a roughly 27.5% share of total league revenue over the lifetime of the deal. The league claims this proposal would result in “hundreds of millions of dollars of losses for our teams.”
Speculation about a potential delay has varied. Some sources have expressed concern to Front Office Sports, while others have said rushing through an expansion draft and free agency in March and early April won’t be a problem. The standard collegiate draft is scheduled for April 13 followed by the start of training camp on April 19. The season is currently slated to tip off May 8.
—Annie Costabile contributed reporting.
